April 28th

Today, to our immense relief, the Conference in Plenary Session approved the amended Covenant with the Monroe Doctrine reservation. The great salle was chockablock with dynamite, but thanks to the masterly handling of the situation by Clemenceau none of it was touched off. Hughes, the weird little Prime Minister of Australia, was simply bursting with an anti-League, anti-Japanese speech, and M. Bourgeois was all primed to advance once again his demand, so frequently rejected in the Commission, for an international army, or at least an international sheriff’s posse, to enforce the decisions of the League. And there was the Portuguese delegate primed with a speech, said to have been a mile long, setting forth the fact that his was a deeply religious country and that not since the days of Pedro the Cruel had his people ever consented to a treaty which was not placed, in the preamble at least, under the benign protection of the Holy Trinity. The Tiger certainly knew how to manipulate the “steam roller” in a manner worthy of the best traditions of our party conventions. He frequently admits that he had given this matter, so important in politics, some attention during his residence in America, and his memory has evidently been refreshed by several dress rehearsals under the “seeing” eye of the Colonel.

An amendment to Article V which appeared in the Covenant as approved today, it must be admitted, was far from familiar to many of the delegates. It had been introduced by President Wilson without fanfare and quietly put through. It justifies and sanctions the ruling of the President that the Japanese equality proposal, or amendment, was defeated, although a majority voted for it. And it also means that it cannot be reintroduced with any hope of approval as long as a representative of Australia is present. This change in procedure, as some call it, is authorized by the first paragraph of Article V which now reads:

“Except where otherwise expressly provided in this Covenant or by terms of the present Treaty, decisions at any meeting of the Assembly or of the Council shall require the agreement of all the Members of the League represented at the meeting.” . . .

This memorable meeting, the last, was held in the afternoon, and the shadows of an early evening after a dark, dull day were lengthening in the great salle when the word was given to the President. I must admit that the tired man who was now called upon to promulgate his new Gospel was not at his best. Certainly the trumpet notes with which on former occasions he had electrified the delegates from all over the world were missed, and what he said was lacking in the beauty of language with which he had presented the first draft to the same assembly on February 14th. In the main this was not the fault of the President. He was not and could not be as confident of his panacea for the world’s ills as he had been ten weeks ago, before he had been exposed to the guerrilla wars of the Conference and the equally discouraging sniping tactics on the home front. Further, what he had to say, and what he had to explain and make clear, did not lend itself to the graceful diction in which he is past master. He had to go into somewhat matter-of-fact details, to describe how the Articles had been transposed, the changes in nomenclature that had been found advisable, and certainly, wisely I thought, he did not dwell on the provisions which had been inserted at the behest of men the President does not regard, and quite correctly, as 100 per cent Covenanters. However, when he closed with the words “I now move the adoption of the Covenant,” there was a ripple of applause in which Clemenceau joined with the muffled sound of his gray-gloved hands.

When M. le Président now closed his eyes, after announcing “Monsieur Bourgeois has the floor,” Colonel House’s face was a study. Was this to be another illustration of the fact that the best-laid plans of even the most astute of men “gang agley”? Perhaps the Tiger had forgotten about the arrangement he had entered upon so gleefully, or more probably he had decided not to be schoolmastered by the man from Texas-that he had decided to achieve the desired result in his own way. Be this as it may, it was a dark moment. The President slumped wearily in his chair, Mr. Balfour gazed intently at the ceiling, Clemenceau closed his eyes, and the delegates prepared to listen once again to the thoughts and the fears that the father of the French League of Nations Society expresses in such halting phrases. But I must try to be fair, and as I was on this occasion not involved in the mechanism of interpreting (Montoux was on the griddle; as always during the Plenary Sessions) I could see how arresting if not convincing his plea was. “I do not conceal from you the fact that if we are to have a League, and thereby security for all, sacrifices will have to be made. Some of our historic traditions and our long-accustomed rights will have to be abandoned, but how insignificant is this loss of independent action when you contrast it with the menace that will hang over us all—if the League is not established with force behind it.” M. Bourgeois had talked along this line for about ten minutes when, unwisely, he stopped for breath and dived into the pyramid of manuscript notes before him. Suddenly Clemenceau opened his eyes wide and rapping sharply with his gavel on the table before him, in a loud, clear voice, announced: “As I hear no objections, I declare that the Conference has considered and adopted the revised Covenant as presented by the Commission of the League appointed for that purpose.” A ripple of applause ran through the brilliant salle in which all joined except poor Bourgeois. Amazed and stunned, and bitterly disappointed, he sank back in his seat, the very picture of woe. Some of his friends surrounded him and offered what consolation there was in the assurance that his undelivered speech, although for the most part a twice-told tale, would be included in the official record of the historic session. Tardieu whispered to House, “You see we have introduced into France the practice of printing unspoken speeches as in Washington through the medium of the Congressional Record House said nothing but evidently was very happy. The Tiger had achieved their joint purpose—but in his own way.

As the delegates prepared to leave, Lloyd George turned to Clemenceau with—“Tell me! How did M. Bourgeois ever get to be Prime Minister? ”

“What a natural question. Many, very many, people ask it. Perhaps I can explain. It was long, long ago when, perhaps as you know, very unfairly I think, I was called the tombeur or the démolisseur des Ministères—the destroyer of Ministries—but they fail to explain that those I smashed were formed out of pseudo-republicans, really camouflaged Bonapartists, Orleanists, and what have you. I did my duty, playing no favorites, and when about twenty presidents of the Council, the possible and the impossible alike, had been placed on the shelf, or were licking their wounds in some political hospital, the supply gave out—only Bourgeois Was left and they had to take him. Strange, isn’t it?”

Then Balfour joined the group, but what a changed Balfour he was! Gone was the self-control which had baffled the Irish in the House of Commons thirty years ago and left me, an observer in the press gallery, speechless with admiration.¹ Now he placed a trembling hand on Clemenceau’s shoulder (a tactical mistake, as the Tiger dislikes physical familiarity). His usually placid features were distorted with anger. Glaring through his glasses at the equally myopic Bourgeois, he said in his best Oxford French in a voice so loud it must have been heard by many, “Oh vous ne savez pas comme je déteste cette homme, c’est un imbécile!”

But that was too strong for Clemenceau. After all Bourgeois was a Frenchman and his appointee. So he answered dryly, “Fas ça, mon ami. Pas ça. C’est un homme de second plan comme il y’en a beaucoup par ici.”

A petty incident at the Plenary amused me unduly, but my amusement was shared by many, and it certainly relieved the solemnity of the proceedings. The French delegates, including M. Pichon, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, have been peeved by the introduction into the League of what they call “satellite states” but which we regard, and properly, as the overseas dominions of the British Commonwealth of Nations and our sister republics of the Caribbean world. And so from time to time Pichon has suggested that the principality of Monaco should be admitted as a trainbearer to France. In private conversation with House, Pichon brings the matter up and with great vehemence, especially when the admission of Newfoundland is proposed by Cecil. As to the admission of Monaco, House always turns his deaf ear, but when Newfoundland is mentioned, he inquires jovially if that is not where the big, handsome dogs come from, and should not every dog have his day before the League, as well as elsewhere?

But for reasons that are variously interpreted, Monaco, where gambling flourishes, bulks large on Pichon’s horizon and today in the Plenary he asked that an invitation to join be sent.

“Of course—I only make the proposal—if nobody objects.”

To which Clemenceau snapped:

“You know everybody objects; that’s where we have all lost our money.”

The word-artist who drew up the official procès-verbal of this session described this spat as: “Un échange de vues entre M. Pic bon et M. le Président du Conseil.” And it was a very characteristic one.

As we walked away from the triumphant session General Smuts joined the Colonel, who knew only too well that the Afrikander was torn with doubts as to the justice and even the efficacy of the Treaty in its present incomplete form. For several weeks now hardly a day had passed without a suggestion of changes coming from him. He seemed very tired. Certainly he was not sharing the exultant mood that shone on the faces of at least a majority of the delegates. He shrugged his shoulders in answer to an unspoken inquiry from the Colonel and then, “The Peace Treaty may fade into oblivion—and that would be, I sometimes think, a merciful dispensation of a kind Providence—but the Covenant will stand—as sure as fate. It must and shall succeed because there is no other way to salvage the future of civilization.”

At the last, indeed the latest minute, when Bourgeois and Larnaude, licking their wounds and sulking in their tents, had abandoned the long struggle, the very intelligent and more practical Tardieu took a hand in the game and wheedled from the Big Four another consolation prize which under circumstances other than those that followed on the World War might have been adequate and certainly would have proved helpful. Tardieu asked not for an armed force, not for a posse, not even for a commission of surveillance manned by staff officers. No, he simply asked for an international commission in liaison with the League, chargé des constatations nécessaires, and this modest request prospered. It became a few days later Article 213 of the Treaty, which reads: “So long as the present treaty remains in force Germany undertakes to give every facility for any investigation the League of Nations, acting, if need be, by a majority vote, may consider necessary.”²