The Inside Story of the Peace Conference   By: Emile Joseph Dillon (1855-1933)

The Peace Conference

by

Dr. E.J. Dillon

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

THE INSIDE STORY OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE

Copyright 1920, by Harper & Brothers

Printed in the United States of America

Published February, 1920

To C.W. BARRON

in memory of interesting conversations

on historic occasions

These pages are inscribed.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

FOREWORD ix

I. THE CITY OF THE CONFERENCE 1

II. SIGNS OF THE TIMES 45

III. THE DELEGATES 58

IV. CENSORSHIP AND SECRECY 117

V. AIMS AND METHODS 136

VI. THE LESSER STATES 184

VII. POLAND'S OUTLOOK IN THE FUTURE 264

VIII. ITALY 272

IX. JAPAN 322

X. ATTITUDE TOWARD RUSSIA 344

XI. BOLSHEVISM 376

XII. HOW BOLSHEVISM WAS FOSTERED 399

XIII. SIDELIGHTS ON THE TREATY 407

XIV. THE TREATY WITH GERMANY 455

XV. THE TREATY WITH BULGARIA 464

XVI. THE COVENANT AND MINORITIES 469

FOREWORD

It is almost superfluous to say that this book does not claim to be a history, however summary, of the Peace Conference, seeing that such a work was made sheer impossible now and forever by the chief delegates themselves when they decided to dispense with records of their conversations and debates. It is only a sketch a sketch of the problems which the war created or rendered pressing of the conditions under which they cropped up; of the simplicist ways in which they were conceived by the distinguished politicians who volunteered to solve them; of the delegates' natural limitations and electioneering commitments and of the secret influences by which they were swayed; of the peoples' needs and expectations; of the unwonted procedure adopted by the Conference and of the fateful consequences of its decisions to the world.

In dealing with all those matters I aimed at impartiality, which is an unattainable ideal, but I trust that sincerity and detachment have brought me reasonably close to it. Having no pet theories of my own to champion, my principal standard of judgment is derived from the law of causality and the rules of historical criticism.

The fatal tactical mistake chargeable to the Conference lay in its making the charter of the League of Nations and the treaty of peace with the Central Powers interdependent. For the maxims that underlie the former are irreconcilable with those that should determine the latter, and the efforts to combine them must, among other untoward results, create a sharp opposition between the vital interests of the people of the United States and the apparent or transient interests of their associates. The outcome of this unnatural union will be to damage the cause of stable peace which it was devised to further.

But the surest touchstone by which to test the capacity and the achievements of the world legislators is their attitude toward Russia in the political domain and toward the labor problem in the economic sphere. And in neither case does their action or inaction appear to have been the outcome of statesman like ideas, or, indeed, of any higher consideration than that of evading the central issue and transmitting the problem to the League of Nations. The results are manifest to all.