February 28th

“I never said, as widely reported (the Paris papers were filled with suggestions to this effect at the time),” insisted Clemenceau in my talk with him this evening, “that Wilson was pro-German, but I did think and I probably said, as I generally say what I think, that many of his plans and proposals were unduly and most unwisely helpful to the Germans in their present unregenerate state. I confess that from my first cable contact with it Wilsonism alarmed me, and that is why on the eve of the Conference I announced in the Chamber, ‘It will be more difficult to make peace than it was to make war.’ Now who can deny that in peacemaking France is meeting with great opposition from all her Allies who were so noble and considerate while the battle was on? During the long war years we sustained the heaviest losses, we suffered the most, and now what is our fate at the Conference?

“We are blocked in our plea for security; only our undoubted claim to Alsace goes uncontested. For the little else we may obtain we shall have to fight and fight hard. I mean to do that very thing and Wilson knows it. There is one bright spot in the dark prospect. Wilson is as frank with me as I am with him. We have both placed our cards on the Peace table.”

There is, it is true, one criticism of Mr. Wilson to which M. Clemenceau often returns, as indeed he did today, which seems to me not without foundation. “I told your President that, in my judgment, the grave fault of his attitude is that he eliminated sentiment and endeavored to efface all memory of the past. A grave, a very grave fault it seems to me. It was then I would say, ‘I am the last, the only survivor of the Protest of Bordeaux—against the infamy of the Treaty that the Prussians imposed at the point of the bayonet. M. le Président, I speak for our glorious dead who fell in the two wars. For myself I can hold my tongue, but not for them.’ ”

In one of the many rude discussions that took place between the Tiger and Lloyd George, Mr. Wilson, the Presbyterian elder, was by many accounts compelled to intervene to prevent the fisticuffs which seemed imminent. As he retired to his corner, the little Welshman said: “Well! I shall expect an apology for these outrageous words!”

“You shall wait for it as long as you wait for the pacification of Ireland,” was the hot reply.

Clemenceau’s comment on this incident, without wholly admitting its truth, however, was amusing. “I can well understand why the youth of the world hates war, more power to them! But for us oldsters it is not so bad; as a matter of fact, war life rejuvenated me. It gave me back the health I had lost, and think of it, there was old George doubling up his fists and squaring off. If Wilson had not intervened, I would have given him a clip on the chin with a savatte stroke.”

Only one thing at this moment can be vouched for as certain, and that is that the relations between the Entente Powers and their chiefs, consecrated by the death of millions of youths, are strained; indeed, they are near the breaking point.