The Peace Negotiations Part 3

The foregoing memorandum was intended as an introduction to the negative guaranty or "self-denying covenant" which I desired to lay before the President as a subst.i.tute for the one upon which he intended to build the League of Nations. The memorandum was suggestive merely, but in view of the necessity for a speedy decision there was no time to prepare an exhaustive legal opinion. Furthermore, I felt that the President, whose hours were at that time crowded with numerous personal conferences and public functions, would find little opportunity to peruse a long and closely reasoned argument on the subject.

The most important portion of the doc.u.ment was that ent.i.tled "_Suggested Draft of Articles for Discussion_. December 20, 1918." It reads as follows:

"The parties to this convention, for the purpose of maintaining international peace and preventing future wars between one another, hereby const.i.tute themselves into a League of Nations and solemnly undertake jointly and severally to fulfill the obligations imposed upon them in the following articles:

"A

"Each power signatory or adherent hereto severally covenants and guarantees that it will not violate the territorial integrity or impair the political independence of any other power signatory or adherent to this convention except when authorized so to do by a decree of the arbitral tribunal hereinafter referred to or by a three-fourths vote of the International Council of the League of Nations created by this convention.

"B

"In the event that any power signatory or adherent hereto shall fail to observe the covenant and guaranty set forth in the preceding article, such breach of covenant and guaranty shall _ipso facto_ operate as an abrogation of this convention in so far as it applies to the offending power and furthermore as an abrogation of all treaties, conventions, and agreements heretofore or hereafter entered into between the offending power and all other powers signatory and adherent to this convention.

"C

"A breach of the covenant and guaranty declared in Article A shall const.i.tute an act unfriendly to all other powers signatory and adherent hereto, and they shall forthwith sever all diplomatic, consular, and official relations with the offending power, and shall, through the International Council, hereinafter provided for, exchange views as to the measures necessary to restore the power, whose sovereignty has been invaded, to the rights and liberties which it possessed prior to such invasion and to prevent further violation thereof.

"D

"Any interference with a vessel on the high seas or with aircraft proceeding over the high seas, which interference is not affirmatively sanctioned by the law of nations shall be, for the purposes of this convention, considered an impairment of political independence."

In considering the foregoing series of articles const.i.tuting a guaranty against one's own acts, instead of a guaranty against the acts of another, it must be remembered that, at the time of their preparation, I had not seen a draft of the President's proposed guaranty, though from conversations with Colonel House and from my study of Point XIV of "The Fourteen Points," I knew that it was affirmative rather than negative in form and would require positive action to be effective in the event that the menace of superior force was insufficient to prevent aggressive acts.

As far as I am able to judge from subsequently acquired knowledge, President Wilson at the time he received my letter of December 23 had a typewritten draft of the doc.u.ment which after certain amendments he later laid before the American Commissioners and which he had printed with a few verbal changes under the t.i.tle of "The Covenant." In order to understand the two forms of guaranty which he had for consideration after he received my letter, I quote the article relating to it, which appears in the first printed draft of the Covenant.

III

"The Contracting Powers unite in guaranteeing to each other political independence and territorial integrity; but it is understood between them that such territorial readjustments, if any, as may in the future become necessary by reasons of changes in present racial conditions and aspirations or present social and political relations.h.i.+ps, pursuant to the principle of self-determination, and also such territorial readjustments as may in the judgment of three fourths of the Delegates be demanded by the welfare and manifest interest of the people concerned, may be effected if agreeable to those peoples; and that territorial changes may involve material compensation. The Contracting Powers accept without reservation the principle that the peace of the world is superior in importance to every question of political jurisdiction or boundary."

It seems needless to comment upon the involved language and the uncertainty of meaning of this article wherein it provided for "territorial readjustments" of which there appeared to be two cla.s.ses, one dependent on "self-determination," the other on the judgment of the Body of Delegates of the League. In view of the possible reasons which might be advanced for changes in territory and allegiance, justification for an appeal to the guarantors was by no means certain. If this article had been before me when the letter of December 23 was written, I might have gone much further in opposition to the President's plan for stabilizing peace in the world on the ground that a guaranty so conditioned would cause rather than prevent international discord.

Though without knowledge of the exact terms of the President's proposed guaranty, I did not feel for the reason stated that I could delay longer in submitting my views to the President. There was not time to work out a complete and well-digested plan for a League, but I had prepared in the rough several articles for discussion which related to the organization, and which might be incorporated in the organic agreement which I then a.s.sumed would be a separate doc.u.ment from the treaty restoring peace. While unwilling to lay these articles before the President until they were more carefully drafted, I enclosed in my letter the following as indicative of the character of the organization which it seemed to me would form a simple and practical agency common to all nations:

"_Suggestions as to an International Council For Discussion_

"_December_ 21, 1918

"An International Council of the League of Nations is hereby const.i.tuted, which shall be the channel for communication between the members of the League, and the agent for common action.

"The International Council shall consist of the diplomatic representative of each party signatory or adherent to this convention at ----.

"Meetings of the International Council shall be held at ----, or in the event that the subject to be considered involves the interests of ---- or its nationals, then at such other place outside the territory of a power whose interests are involved as the Supervisory Committee of the Council shall designate.

"The officer charged with the conduct of the foreign affairs of the power where a meeting is held shall be the presiding officer thereof.

"At the first meeting of the International Council a Supervisory Committee shall be chosen by a majority vote of the members present, which shall consist of five members and shall remain in office for two years or until their successors are elected.

"The Supervisory Committee shall name a Secretariat which shall have charge of the archives of the Council and receive all communications addressed to the Council or Committee and send all communications issued by the Council or Committee.

"The Supervisory Committee may draft such rules of procedure as it deems necessary for conducting business coming before the Council or before the Committee.

"The Supervisory Committee may call a meeting of the Council at its discretion and must call a meeting at the request of any member of the Council provided the request contains a written statement of the subject to be discussed.

"The archives of the Council shall be open at any time to any member of the Council, who may make and retain copies thereof.

"All expenses of the Supervisory Committee and Secretariat shall be borne equally by all powers signatory or adherent to this convention."

As indicated by the caption, this doc.u.ment was intended merely "for discussion" of the princ.i.p.al features of the organization. It should be noted that the basic principle is the equality of nations. No special privileges are granted to the major powers in the conduct of the organization. The rights and obligations of one member of the League are no more and no less than those of every other member. It is based on international democracy and denies international aristocracy.

Equality in the exercise of sovereign rights in times of peace, an equality which is imposed by the very nature of sovereignty, seemed to me fundamental to a world organization affecting in any way a nation's independence of action or its exercise of supreme authority over its external or domestic affairs. In my judgment any departure from that principle would be a serious error fraught with danger to the general peace of the world and to the recognized law of nations, since it could mean nothing less than the primacy of the Great Powers and the acknowledgment that because they possessed the physical might they had a right to control the affairs of the world in times of peace as well as in times of war. For the United States to admit that such primacy ought to be formed would be bad enough, but to suggest it indirectly by proposing an international organization based on that idea would be far worse.

On January 22, 1917, the President in an address to the Senate had made the following declaration:

"The equality of nations upon which peace must be founded if it is to last must be an equality of rights; the guarantees exchanged must neither recognize nor imply a difference between big nations or small, between those that are powerful and those that are weak. Right must be based upon the common strength, not the individual strength, of the nations upon whose concert peace will depend. Equality of territory or of resources there of course cannot be; nor any other sort of equality not gained in the ordinary peaceful and legitimate development of the peoples themselves. But no one asks or expects anything more than an equality of rights."

In view of this sound declaration of principle it seemed hardly possible that the President, after careful consideration of the consequences of his plan of a guaranty requiring force to make it practical, would not perceive the fundamental error of creating a primacy of the Great Powers.

It was in order to prevent, if possible, the United States from becoming sponsor for an undemocratic principle that I determined to lay my partial plan of organization before the President at the earliest moment that I believed it would receive consideration.

To my letter of December 23 with its enclosed memoranda I never received a reply or even an acknowledgment. It is true that the day following its delivery the President went to Chaumont to spend Christmas at the headquarters of General Pers.h.i.+ng and that almost immediately thereafter he visited London and two or three days after his return to Paris he set out for Rome. It is possible that Mr. Wilson in the midst of these crowded days had no time to digest or even to read my letter and its enclosed memoranda. It is possible that he was unable or unwilling to form an opinion as to their merits without time for meditation. I do not wish to be unjustly critical or to blame the President for a neglect which was the result of circ.u.mstance rather than of intention.

At the time I a.s.sumed that his failure to mention my letter in any way was because his visits to royalty exacted from him so much of his time that there was no opportunity to give the matter consideration. While some doubt was thrown on this a.s.sumption by the fact that the President held an hour's conference with the American Commissioners on January 1, just before departing for Italy, during which he discussed the favorable att.i.tude of Mr. Lloyd George toward his (the President's) ideas as to a League of Nations, but never made any reference to my proposed subst.i.tute for the guaranty, I was still disposed to believe that there was a reasonable explanation for his silence and that upon his return from Rome he would discuss it.

Having this expectation I continued the preparation of tentative provisions to be included in the charter of a League of Nations in the event one was negotiated, and which would in any event const.i.tute a guide for the preparation of declarations to be included in the Treaty of Peace in case the negotiation as to a League was postponed until after peace had been restored. As has been said, it was my hope that there would be a separate convention organizing the League, but I was not as sanguine of this as many who believed this course would be followed.

It later developed that the President never had any other purpose than to include the detailed plan of organization in the peace treaty, whether the treaty was preliminary or definitive. When he departed for Italy he had not declared this purpose to the Commissioners, but from some source, which I failed to note at the time and cannot now recollect, I gained the impression that he intended to pursue this policy, for on December 29 I wrote in my book of notes:

"It is evident that the President is determined to incorporate in the peace treaty an elaborate scheme for the League of Nations which will excite all sorts of opposition at home and abroad and invite much discussion.

"The articles relating to the League ought to be few and brief. They will not be. They will be many and long. If we wait till they are accepted, it will be four or five months before peace is signed, and I fear to say how much longer it will take to have it ratified.

"It is perhaps foolish to prophesy, but I will take the chance. Two months from now we will still be haggling over the League of Nations and an exasperated world will be cursing us for not having made peace. I hope that I am a false prophet, but I fear my prophecy will come true. We are riding a hobby, and riding to a fall."

By the time the President returned from his triumphal journey to Rome I had completed the articles upon which I had been working; at least they were in form for discussion. At a conference at the Hotel Crillon between President Wilson and the American Commissioners on January 7, I handed to him the draft articles saying that they were supplemental to my letter of December 23. He took them without comment and without making any reference to my unanswered letter.

The first two articles of the "International Agreement," as I termed the doc.u.ment, were identical in language with the memoranda dealing with a mutual covenant and with an international council which I had enclosed in my letter of December 23. It is needless, therefore, to repeat them here.

Article III of the so-called "Agreement" was ent.i.tled "Peaceful Settlements of International Disputes," and read as follows:

"_Clause_ 1

"In the event that there is a controversy between two or more members of the League of Nations which fails of settlement through diplomatic channels, one of the following means of settlement shall be employed:

"1. The parties to the controversy shall const.i.tute a joint commission to investigate and report jointly or severally to their Governments the facts and make recommendations as to settlement.

After such report a further effort shall be made to reach a diplomatic settlement of the controversy.

"2. The parties shall by agreement arrange for the submission of the controversy to arbitration mutually agreed upon, or to the Arbitral Tribunal hereinafter referred to.

"3. Any party may, unless the second means of settlement is mutually adopted, submit the controversy to the Supervisory Committee of the International Council; and the Committee shall forthwith (a) name and direct a special commission to investigate and report upon the subject; (b) name and direct a commission to mediate between the parties to the controversy; or (c) direct the parties to submit the controversy to the Arbitral Tribunal for judicial settlement, it being understood that the direction to arbitrate may be made at any time in the event that investigation and mediation fail to result in a settlement of the controversy.