April 12, 1919

In view of certain unpleasant incidents, it is now advisable to turn back the clock, or rather the calendar, to a period some months ago. On December 9, as requested, House radioed the President, then at sea, the tentative program of his reception, for he was due to arrive at Brest three days later. Among the proposed arrangements was this: “The French and Belgian governments are most insistent that you should make a tour of the devastated regions, and accordingly the French government is making arrangements for you to take a trip through Northern France and Belgium which, beginning December 26, will occupy three days.”

The President vetoed this arrangement. Instead, while awaiting the opening of the Conference, he visited the courts of St. James and the Quirinal and received the thanks of the monarchs and the peoples who had by American intervention been saved from destruction. When these courtesy calls had been paid, House was strongly in favor of the postponed visit to the devastated regions and the battlefields without delay, and Clemenceau offered to act as the President’s cicerone.

To this the President made no reply or simply begged the question. When ripples of dissatisfaction became noticeable in the French press, about January 5 (the President was even reproached by some of the papers for what one of them termed his “Olympian indifference to suffering”), House took up the project again and urged the President to give it his attention. By this time the President was irritated and it was clear that some of the criticism of his inaction had seeped through the almost sound-proof walls of the Paris White House. “House,” he said, “I have come to Europe to do what I can to repair the damage resulting from this savage war. But looking at the ruins and examining the scars will not be helpful in the work of restoration which awaits us, and I am confident that such a tour would not be conducive to the frame of mind we must all pray for if the peace negotiations are to succeed. I should think the French people would know that nothing could make me despise the Germans more than I do now.”

When it became apparent that the President was not going to make the excursion, or had at least postponed it to some quite distant day, the French press, provincial as well as Parisian, became indignant and this indignation was expressed in unrestrained language. There are some who maintain that the resulting campaign of—well it approached vilification—was inspired by the French government, but I do not think so. For once, in my judgment, the newspapers were a true mirror of French public opinion. Many of them printed with approval the demands of the Depeche of Toulouse, a most influential paper, which said and repeated almost daily, “Wilson must emerge from his study. He must see with his own eyes what we have suffered. Enfin he must get in touch with the realities of war.” The President realized at last that he had been unwise and in early spring paid the skimpy visit which would have sufficed in December. While of course other grievances have been added to the score, and for these the President was not solely responsible, I am confident that the delay in making the pilgrimage to the martyred cities and the devastated provinces started the outburst of ill-feeling with which he has to contend now.

[September, 1919. In my judgment, in his attitude and in his handling of this matter the President made three mistakes and these three were all that it was in his power to make. First, he should have made the excursion when invited and when the French people expected him to make it. And when criticized for the omission and the criticism was couched in outspoken and indeed in most unseemly terms, he should not have yielded to it and paid the visit. Third, when he did yield and made the excursion he should not have allowed it to degenerate into a perfunctory and a most ungracious affair.]