Belgium, too, was treated with scant consideration. The praise lavished on her courageous people during the war was apparently deemed an adequate recompense for the sacrifices she had made and the losses she endured. For the revision of the treaties of 1839, indispensable to the economic development of the country, no diplomatic preparation was made down to May, and among the Treaty clauses then drafted Belgium's share of justice was so slight and insufficient that the unbiased press published sharp strictures on the forgetfulness or egotism of the Supreme Council. "The little that has leaked out of the decisions taken regarding the conditions which affect Belgium," wrote one journal, "has caused not only bitter disappointment in Belgium, but also indignation everywhere.... The Allies having decided not to accord moral satisfaction to Belgium (they chose Geneva as the capital of the League of Nations), it was perhaps to be expected that they would not accord her material satisfaction. And such expectations are being fulfilled. The Limburg province, annexed to Holland in 1839, the province which gave the retreating enemy unlawful refuge in 1918, a rank violation of Dutch neutrality, is apparently not to be restored to Belgium. Even the right, vital to the safety and welfare of Belgium, the right of unimpeded navigation of the Scheldt between Antwerp and the sea, has not yet been conceded. And the raw material that is indispensable if Belgian industry is to be revived is withheld; the Allies, however, are quite willing to flood the country with manufactured articles."[135]

And yet Belgium's demands were extremely modest.[136] They were formulated, not as the guerdon for her heroic defense of civilization, but as a plain corollary flowing direct from each and every principle officially recognized by the heads of the Conference—right, nationality, legitimate guarantees, and economic requirements. Tested by any or all of these accepted touchstones, everything asked for was reasonable and fair in itself, and seemingly indispensable to the durability of the new world-structure which the statesmen were endeavoring to raise on the ruins of the old. Belgium's forlorn political and territorial plight embodied all the worst vices of the old balance of power stigmatized by President Wilson: the mutilation of the country; the forcible separation of sections of its population from each other; the distribution of these lopped, ethnic fragments among alien states and dynasties; the control of her waterways handed over to commercial rivals; the transformation of cities and districts that were obviously destined to figure among her sources of national well-being and centers of culture into dead towns that paralyze her effort and hinder her progress. In a word, Belgium had had no political existence for her own behoof. She was not an organic unit in the sodality of nations, but a mere cog in the mechanism of European equilibrium.

Ruined by the war, Belgium was sorely tried by the Peace Conference. She complained of two open wounds which poisoned her existence, stunted her economic growth, and rendered her self-defense an impossibility: the vast gap of Limburg on the east and the blocking of the Scheldt on the west. The great national reduit, Antwerp, cut off from the sea, inaccessible to succor in case of war, on the one side, and Limburg opening to Germany's armies the road through central Belgium, on the other—these were the two standing dangers which it was hoped would be removed. How dangerous they are events had demonstrated. In October, 1914, Antwerp fell because Holland had closed the Scheldt and forbidden the entrance to warships and transports, and in November, 1918, a German army of over seventy thousand men eluded pursuit by the Allies by passing through Dutch Limburg, carrying with them vast war materials and booty. Militarily Belgium is exposed to mortal perils so long as the treaties which ordained this preposterous division of territories are maintained in vigor.

Economically, too, the consequences, especially of the status of the Scheldt, are admittedly baleful. To Holland the river is practically useless—indeed, the only advantage it could confer would be the power of impeding the growth and prosperity of Antwerp for the benefit of its rival, Rotterdam. All that the Belgians desired there was the complete control of their national river, with the right of carrying out the works necessary to keep it navigable. A like demand was put forward for the canal of Terneuzen, which links the city of Ghent with the Scheldt; and the suppression of the checks and hindrances to Belgium's free communications with her hinterland—i.e., the basins of the Meuse and the Rhine. Prom every point of view, including that of international law, the claims made were at once modest and grounded. But the Supreme Council had no time to devote to such subsidiary matters, and, like more momentous issues, they were adjourned.

The Belgian delegation did not ask that Holland's territory should be curtailed. On the contrary, they would have welcomed its increase by the addition of territory inhabited by people of her own idiom, under German sway.[137] But the Dutch demurred, as Denmark had done in the matter of the third Schleswig zone, for fear of offending Germany. And the Supreme Council acquiesced in the refusal. Again, when issues were under discussion that turned upon the Rhine country and affected Belgian interests, her delegates were never consulted. They were systematically ignored by the Conference. When the capital of the League of Nations was to be chosen, their hopes that Brussels would be deemed worthy of the honor were blasted by President Wilson himself. One of the American delegates informed a foreign colleague "that the capital of the League must be situate in a tranquil country, must have a steady, settled population and a really good climate." "A good climate?" asked a continental statesman. "Then why not choose Monte Carlo?"

But the decision in favor of Geneva was sent by courier from Switzerland ready made to President Wilson. The chief grounds which lent color to the belief that religious bias played a larger part in the Conference's decisions than was apparent were the following: It was from Geneva that the spirit of religious and political liberty first went forth to be incarnated among the various nations of the world. It is to John Calvin, rather than to Martin Luther, that the birth of the Scotch Covenanters and of English Puritanism is traceable. Hence Geneva is the parent of New England. So, too, it was Rousseau—a true child of Calvin—who was the author of America's Declaration of Independence. Again, one of the first pacifists and advocates of international arbitration was born in Geneva. John Knox sat for two years at the feet of Calvin. Consequently the Puritan Revolution, the French Revolution, and the American Revolution all had their springs in Geneva.

These were the considerations which weighed with President Wilson when he refused to fix his choice on Brussels. In vain the Belgians argued and pleaded, urging that if the Conference were to vote for London, Washington, or Paris, they would receive the announcement with respectful acquiescence, but that among the lesser states they conceived that their country's claims were the best grounded. To the Americans who objected that Switzerland's mountains and lakes, being free from hateful war memories, offer more fitting surroundings for the capital of the League of Peace than Brussels, where vestiges of the odious struggle will long survive, they answered that they could only regret that Belgium's resistance to the lawless invaders should be taken to disqualify her for the honor.

It is worth while pursuing this matter a step farther. The Federal Council in Berne having soon afterward officially recommended[138] the nation to enter the League which guarantees it neutrality,[139] an illuminating discussion ensued. And it was elicited that as there is an obligation imposed on all member-states to execute the decrees of the League for the coercion of rebellious fellow-members, it follows that in such cases Switzerland, too, would be obliged to take an active part in the struggle between the League and the recalcitrant country. From military operations, however, Switzerland is dispensed, but it would certainly be bound to adopt economic measures of pressure, and to this extent abandon its neutrality. Now not only would that attitude be construed by the disobedient nation as unfriendly, and the usual consequences drawn from it, but as Switzerland is freed from military co-operation, it follows that the League could not fix the headquarters of its military command in its own capital, Geneva, as that would constitute a violation of Swiss neutrality. And, if it did, Switzerland would in self-defense be bound to oppose the decision!

The Belgians were discouraged by the disdainful demeanor and grudging disposition of the Supreme Council, and irritated by the arbitrariness of its decrees and the indefensible way in which it applied principles that were propounded as sacred. Before restoring the diminutive cantons of Eupen and Malmedy to Belgium, for example, Mr. Wilson insisted on ascertaining the will of the population by plebiscite. In itself the measure was reasonable, but the position of these little districts was substantially on all-fours with Alsace-Lorraine, which was restored to France without any such test. In Fiume, also, the will of the inhabitants went for nothing, Mr. Wilson refusing to consult them. Further, Austria, whose people were known to favor union with Germany, was systematically jockeyed into ruinous isolation. "Now what, in the light of these conflicting judgments," asked the Belgians, "is the true meaning of the principle of self-determination?" The only reply they received was that Mr. Wilson was right when he told his fellow-countrymen that his principles stood in need of interpretation, and that, as he was the sole authorized interpreter, his presence was required in Europe.

In money matters, too, the chief plenipotentiaries can hardly be acquitted of something akin to niggardliness toward the country which had saved theirs from a catastrophe. Down to the month of May, 1921, two and a half milliard francs was the maximum sum allotted to Belgium by the Supreme Council. And for the work of restoring the devastated country, which the Great Powers had spontaneously promised to accomplish, it was alleged by experts to be wholly inadequate. Other financial grievances were ignored—for a time. Further, it was decided that Germany should surrender her African colonies to the Great Powers; yet Belgium, who contributed materially to their conquest, was not to be associated with them.

Irritated by this illiberality, the Belgian delegation, having consulted with M. Renkin, to whose judgment in these matters special weight attached, resolved to make a firm stand, and refused to sign the Treaty unless at least certain modest financial, economic, and colonial claims, which ought to have been settled spontaneously, were accorded under pressure. And the Supreme Council, rather than be arraigned before the world on the charge of behaving unjustly as well as ungenerously toward Belgium, ultimately gave way, leaving, however, an impression behind which seemed as indelible as it was profound....

The domination which is now being exercised by the principal Powers over the remaining states of the world is fraught with consequences which were not foreseen, and have not yet been realized by those who established it. Among the least momentous, but none the less real, is one to which Belgium is exposed. Hitherto there was a language problem in that heroic country which, being an internal controversy, could be settled without noteworthy perturbations by the good-will of the Walloons and the Flemings. The danger, which one fervently hopes will be warded off, consists in the possible transformation of that dispute into an international question, in consequence of possible accords of a military or economic nature. The subject is too delicate to be handled by a foreigner, and the Belgian people are too practical and law-loving not to avoid unwary steps that might turn a linguistic problem into a racial issue.

The Supreme Council soon came to be looked upon as the prototype of the future League, and in that light its action was sharply scrutinized by all whom the League concerned. Foremost among these were the representatives of the lesser states, or, as they were termed, "states with limited interests." This band of patriots had pilgrimaged to Paris full of hope for their respective countries, having drunk in avidly the unstinted praise and promises which had served as pabulum for their attachment to the Allied cause during the war. But their illusions were short-lived. At one of their first meetings with the delegates of the Great Powers a storm burst which scattered their expectations to the winds. When the sky cleared it was discovered that from indispensable fellow-workers they had shrunk to dwarfish protegees, mere units of an inferior category, who were to be told what to do and would be constrained to do it thoroughly if not unmurmuringly.

At the historic sitting of January 26th, the delegates of the lesser states protested energetically against the purely decorative part assigned to them at a Conference in the decisions of which their peoples were so intensely interested. The Canadian Minister, having spoken of the "proposal" of the Great Powers, was immediately corrected by M. Clemenceau, who brusquely said that it was not a proposal, but a decision, which was therefore definitive and final. Thereupon the Belgian delegate, M. Hymans, delivered a masterly speech, pleading for genuine discussion in order to elucidate matters that so closely concerned them all, and he requested the Conference to allow the smaller belligerent Allies more than two delegates. Their demand was curtly rejected by the French Premier, who informed his hearers that the Conference was the creation of the Great Powers, who intended to keep the direction of its labors in their own hands. He added significantly that the smaller nations' representatives would probably not have been invited at all if the special problem of the League of Nations had not been mooted. Nor should it be forgotten, he added, that the five Great Powers represented no less than twelve million fighting-men.... In conclusion, he told them that they had better get on with their work in lieu of wasting precious time in speechmaking. These words produced a profound and lasting effect, which, however, was hardly the kind intended by the French statesman.

"Conferential Tsarism" was the term applied to this magisterial method by one of the offended delegates. He said to me on the morrow: "My reply to M. Clemenceau was ready, but fear of impairing the prestige of the Conference prevented me from uttering it. I could have emphasized the need for unanimity in the presence of vigilant enemies, ready to introduce a wedge into every fissure of the edifice we are constructing. I could have pointed out that, this being an assembly of nations which had waged war conjointly, there is no sound reason why its membership should be diluted with states which never drew the sword at all. I might have asked what has become of the doctrine preached when victory was still undecided, that a league of nations must repose upon a free consent of all sovereign states. And above all things else I could have inquired how it came to pass that the architect-in-chief of the society of nations which is to bestow a stable peace on mankind should invoke the argument of force, of militarism, against the pacific peoples who voluntarily made the supreme sacrifice for the cause of humanity and now only ask for a hearing. Twelve million fighting-men is an argument to be employed against the Teutons, not against the peace-loving, law-abiding peoples of Europe.

"Premier Clemenceau seemed to lay the blame for the waste of time on our shoulders, but the truth is that we were never admitted to the deliberations until yesterday; although two and one-half months have elapsed since the armistice was concluded, and although the progress made by these leading statesmen is manifestly limited, he grudged us forty-five minutes to give vent to our views and wishes.

"The French Tiger was admirable when crushing the enemies of civilization with his twelve million fighting-men; but gestures and actions which were appropriate to the battlefield become sources of jarring and discord when imported into a concert of peoples."

Much bitterness was generated by those high-handed tactics, whereupon certain slight concessions were made in order to placate the offended delegates; but, being doled out with a bad grace, they failed of the effect intended. Belgium received three delegates instead of two, and Jugoslavia three; but Rumania, whose population was estimated at fourteen millions, was allowed but two. This inexplicable decision caused a fresh wound, which was kept continuously open by friction, although it might readily have been avoided. Its consequences may be traced in Rumania's singular relations to the Supreme Council before and after the fall of Kuhn in Hungary.

But even those drastic methods might be deemed warranted if the policy enforced were, in truth, conducive to the welfare of the nations on whom it was imposed. But hastily improvised by one or two men, who had no claim to superior or even average knowledge of the problems involved, and who were constantly falling into egregious and costly errors, it was inevitable that their intervention should be resented as arbitrary and mischievous by the leaders of the interested nations whose acquaintanceship with those questions and with the interdependent issues was extensive and precise. This resentment, however, might have been not, indeed, neutralized, but somewhat mitigated, if the temper and spirit in which the Duumvirate discharged its self-set functions had been free from hauteur and softened by modesty. But the magisterial wording in which its decisions were couched, the abruptness with which they were notified, and the threats that accompanied their imposition would have been repellent even were the authors endowed with infallibility.

One of the delegates who unbosomed himself to me on the subject soon after the Germans had signed the Treaty remarked: "The Big Three are superlatively unsympathetic to most of the envoys from the lesser belligerent states. And it would be a wonder if it were otherwise, for they make no effort to hide their disdain for us. In fact, it is downright contempt. They never consult us. When we approach them they shove us aside as importunate intruders. They come to decisions unknown to us, and carry them out in secrecy, as though we were enemies or spies. If we protest or remonstrate, we are imperialists and ungrateful.

"Often we learn only from the newspapers the burdens or the restrictions that have been imposed on us."

A couple of days previously M. Clemenceau, in an unofficial reply to a question put by the Rumanian delegation, directed them to consult the financial terms of the Treaty with Austria, forgetting that the delegates of the lesser states had not been allowed to receive or read those terms. Although communicated to the Austrians, they were carefully concealed from the Rumanians, whom they also concerned. At the same time, the Rumanian government was called upon to take and announce a decision which presupposed acquaintanceship with those conditions, whereupon the Rumanian Premier telegraphed from Bucharest to Paris to have them sent. But his locum tenens did not possess a copy and had no right to demand one.[140] Incongruities of this character were frequent.

One statesman in Paris, who enjoys a world-wide reputation, dissented from those who sided with the lesser states. He looked at their protests and tactics from an angle of vision which the unbiased historian, however emphatically he may dissent from it, cannot ignore. He said: "All the smaller communities are greedy and insatiable. If the chiefs of the World Powers had understood their temper and ascertained their aspirations in 1914, much that has passed into history since then would never have taken place. During the war these miniature countries were courted, flattered, and promised the sun and the moon, earth and heaven, and all the glories therein. And now that these promises cannot be redeemed, they are wroth, and peevishly threaten the great states with disobedience and revolt. This, it is true, they could not do if the latter had not forfeited their authority and prestige by allowing their internal differences, hesitations, contradictions, and repentances to become manifest to all. To-day it is common knowledge that the Great Powers are amenable to very primitive incentives and deterrents. If in the beginning they had been united and said to their minor brethren: 'These are your frontiers. These your obligations,' the minor brethren would have bowed and acquiesced gratefully. In this way the boundary problems might have been settled to the satisfaction of all, for each new or enlarged state would have been treated as the recipient of a free gift from the World Powers. But the plenipotentiaries went about their task in a different and unpractical fashion. They began by recognizing the new communities, and then they gave them representatives at the Conference. This they did on the ground that the League of Nations must first be founded, and that all well-behaved belligerents on the Allied side have a right to be consulted upon that. And, finally, instead of keeping to their program and liquidating the war, they mingled the issues of peace with the clauses of the League and debated them simultaneously. In these debates they revealed their own internal differences, their hesitancy, and the weakness of their will. And the lesser states have taken advantage of that. The general results have been the postponement of peace, the physical exhaustion of the Central Empires, and the spread of Bolshevism."

It should not be forgotten that this mixture of the general and the particular of the old order and the new was objected to on other grounds. The Italians, for example, urged that it changed the status of a large number of their adversaries into that of highly privileged Allies. During the war they were enemies, before the peace discussions opened they had obtained forgiveness, after which they entered the Conference as cherished friends. The Italians had waged their war heroically against the Austrians, who inflicted heavy losses on them. Who were these Austrians? They were composed of the various nationalities which made up the Hapsburg monarchy, and in especial of men of Slav speech. These soldiers, with notable exceptions, discharged their duty to the Austrian Emperor and state conscientiously, according to the terms of their oath. Their disposition toward the Italians was not a whit less hostile than was that of the common German man against the French and the English. Why, then, argued the Italians, accord them privileges over the ally who bore the brunt of the fight against them? Why even treat the two as equals? It may be replied that the bulk of the people were indifferent and merely carried out orders. Well, the same holds good of the average German, yet he is not being spoiled by the victorious World Powers. But the Croats and others suddenly became the favorite children of the Conference, while the Germans and Teuton-Austrians, who in the meanwhile had accepted and fulfilled President Wilson's conditions for entry into the fellowship of nations, were not only punished heavily—which was perfectly just—but also disqualified for admission into the League, which was inconsistent.

The root of all the incoherences complained of lay in the circumstance that the chiefs of the Great Powers had no program, no method; Mr. Wilson's pristine scheme would have enabled him to treat the gallant Serbs and their Croatian brethren as he desired. But he had failed to maintain it against opposition. On the other hand, the traditional method of the balance of power would have given Italy all that she could reasonably ask for, but Mr. Wilson had partially destroyed it. Nothing remained then but to have recourse to a tertium quid which profoundly dissatisfied both parties and imperiled the peace of the world in days to come. And even this makeshift the eminent plenipotentiaries were unable to contrive single-handed. Their notion of getting the work done was to transfer it to missions, commissions, and sub-commissions, and then to take action which, as often as not, ran counter to the recommendations of these selected agents. Oddly enough, none of these bodies received adequate directions. To take a concrete example: a central commission was appointed to deal with the Polish frontier problems, a second commission under M. Jules Cambon had to study the report on the Polish Delimitation question, but although often consulted, it was seldom listened to. Then there was a third commission, which also did excellent work to very little purpose. Now all the questions which formed the subjects of their inquiries might be approached from various sides. There were historical frontiers, ethnographical frontiers, political and strategical and linguistic frontiers. And this does not exhaust the list. Among all these, then, the commissioners had to choose their field of investigation as the spirit moved them, without any guidance from the Supreme Council, which presumably did not know what it wanted.

As an example of the Council's unmethodical procedure, and of its slipshod way of tackling important work, the following brief sketch of a discussion which was intended to be decisive and final, but ended in mere waste of time, may be worth recording. The topic mooted was disarmament. The Anglo-Saxon plenipotentiaries, feeling that they owed it to their doctrines and their peoples to ease the military burdens of the latter and lessen temptations to acts of violence, favored a measure by which armaments should be reduced forthwith. The Italian delegates had put forward the thesis, which was finally accepted, that if Austria, for instance, was to be forbidden to keep more than a certain number of troops under arms, the prohibition should be extended to all the states of which Austria had been composed, and that in all these cases the ratio between the population and the army should be identical. Accordingly, the spokesmen of the various countries interested were summoned to take cognizance of the decision and intimate their readiness to conform to it.

M. Paderewski listened respectfully to the decree, and then remarked: "According to the accounts received from the French military authorities, Germany still has three hundred and fifty thousand soldiers in Silesia." "No," corrected M. Clemenceau, "only three hundred thousand." "I accept the correction," replied the Polish Premier. "The difference, however, is of no importance to my contention, which is that according to the symptoms reported we Poles may have to fight the Germans and to wage the conflict single-handed. As you know, we have other military work on hand. I need only mention our strife with the Bolsheviki. If we are deprived of effective means of self-defense, on the one hand, and told to expect no help from the Allies, on the other hand, the consequence will be what every intelligent observer foresees. Now three hundred thousand Germans is no trifle to cope with. If we confront them with an inadequate force and are beaten, what then?" "Undoubtedly," exclaimed M. Clemenceau, "if the Germans were victorious in the east of Europe the Allies would have lost the war. And that is a perspective not to be faced."

M. Bratiano spoke next. "We too," he said, "have to fight the Bolsheviki on more than one front. This struggle is one of life and death to us. But it concerns, if only in a lesser degree, all Europe, and we are rendering services to the Great Powers by the sacrifices we thus offer up. Is it desirable, is it politic, to limit our forces without reference to these redoubtable tasks which await them? Is it not incumbent on the Powers to allow these states to grow to the dimensions required for the discharge of their functions?" "What you advance is true enough for the moment," objected M. Clemenceau; "but you forget that our limitations are not to be applied at once. We fix a term after the expiry of which the strength of the armies will be reduced. We have taken all the circumstances into account." "Are you prepared to affirm," queried the Rumanian Minister, "that you can estimate the time with sufficient precision to warrant our risking the existence of our country on your forecast?" "The danger will have completely disappeared," insisted the French Premier, "by January, 1921." "I am truly glad to have this assurance," answered M. Bratiano, "for I doubt not that you are quite certain of what you advance, else you would not stake the fate of your eastern allies on its correctness. But as we who have not been told the grounds on which you base this calculation are asked to manifest our faith in it by incurring the heaviest conceivable risks, would it be too much to suggest that the Great Powers should show their confidence in their own forecast by guaranteeing that if by the insurgence of unexpected events they proved to be mistaken and Rumania were attacked, they would give us prompt and adequate military assistance?" To this appeal there was no affirmative response; whereupon M. Bratiano concluded: "The limitation of armaments is highly desirable. No people is more eager for it than ours. But it has one limitation which must, I venture to think, be respected. So long as you have a restive or dubious neighbor, whose military forces are subjected neither to limitation nor control, you cannot divest yourself of your own means of self-defense. That is our view of the matter."

Months later the same difficulty cropped up anew, this time in a concrete form, and was dealt with by the Supreme Council in its characteristic manner. Toward the end of August Rumania's doings in Hungary and her alleged designs on the Banat alarmed and angered the delegates, whose authority was being flouted with impunity; and by way of summarily terminating the scandal and preventing unpleasant surprises M. Clemenceau proposed that all further consignments of arms to Rumania should cease. Thereupon Italy's chief representative, Signor Tittoni, offered an amendment. He deprecated, he said, any measure leveled specially against Rumania, all the more that there existed already an enactment of the old Council of Four limiting the armaments of all the lesser states. The Military Council of Versailles, having been charged with the study of this matter, had reached the conclusion that the Great Powers should not supply any of the governments with war material. Signor Tittoni was of the opinion, therefore, that those conclusions should now be enforced.

The Council thereupon agreed with the Italian delegate, and passed a resolution to supply none of the lesser countries with war material. And a few minutes later it passed another resolution authorizing Germany to cede part of her munitions and war material to Czechoslovakia and some more to General Yudenitch![141]

When the commissions to which all the complex problems had to be referred were being first created,[142] the lesser states were allowed only five representatives on the Financial and Economic commissions, and were bidden to elect them. The nineteen delegates of these States protested on the ground that this arrangement would not give them sufficient weight in the councils by which their interests would be discussed. These malcontents were headed by Senhor Epistacio Pessoa, the President-elect of the United States of Brazil. The Polish delegate, M. Dmowski, addressing the meeting, suggested that they should not proceed to an election, the results of which might stand in no relation to the interests which the states represented had in matters of European finance, but that they should ask the Great Powers to appoint the delegates. To this the President-elect of Brazil demurred, taking the ground that it would be undignified for the lesser states to submit to have their spokesman nominated by the greater. Thereupon they elected five delegates, all of them from South American countries, to deal with European finance, leaving the Europeans to choose five from among themselves. This would have given ten in all to the communities whose interests were described as limited, and was an affront to the Great Powers.

This comedy was severely judged and its authors reprimanded by the heads of the Conference, who, while quashing the elections, relented to the extent of promising that extra delegates might be appointed for the lesser nations later on. As a matter of fact, the number of commissions was of no real consequence, because on all momentous issues their findings, unless they harmonized with the decisions of the chief plenipotentiaries, were simply ignored.

The curious attitude of the Supreme Council toward Rumania may be contemplated from various angles of vision. But the safest coign of vantage from which to look at it is that formed by the facts.

Rumania's grievances were many, and they began at the opening of the Conference, when she was refused more than two delegates as against the five attributed to each of the Great Powers and three each for Serbia and Belgium, whose populations are numerically inferior to hers. Then her treaty with Great Britain, France, and Russia, on the strength of which she entered the war, was upset by its more powerful signatories as soon as the frontier question was mooted at the Conference. Further, the existence of the Rumanian delegation was generally ignored by the Supreme Council. Thus, when the treaty with Germany was presented to Count von Brockdorff-Rantzau, a mere journalist[143] at the Conference possessed a complete copy, whereas the Rumanian delegation, headed by the Prime Minister Bratiano, had cognizance only of an incomplete summary. When the fragmentary treaty was drafted for Austria, the Rumanian delegation saw the text only on the evening before the presentation, and, noticing inacceptable clauses, formulated reservations. These reservations were apparently acquiesced in by the members of the Supreme Council. That, at any rate, was the impression of MM. Bratiano and Misu. But on the following day, catching a glimpse of the draft, they discovered that the obnoxious provisions had been left intact. Then they lodged their reserves in writing, but to no purpose. One of the obligations imposed on Rumania by the Powers was a promise to accept in advance any and every measure that the Supreme Council might frame for the protection of minorities in the country, and for further restricting the sovereignty of the state in matters connected with the transit of Allied goods. And, lastly, the Rumanians complained that the action of the Supreme Council was creating a dangerous ferment in the Dobrudja, and even in Transylvania, where the Saxon minority, which had willingly accepted Rumanian sway, was beginning to agitate against it. In Bessarabia the non-Rumanian elements of the population were fiercely opposing the Rumanians and invoking the support of the Peace Conference. The cardinal fact which, in the judgment of the Rumanians, dominated the situation was the quasi ultimatum presented to them in the spring, when they were summoned unofficially and privately to grant industrial concessions to a pushing body of financiers, or else to abide by the consequences, one of which, they were told, would be the loss of America's active assistance. They had elected to incur the threatened penalty after having carefully weighed the advantages and disadvantages of laying the matter before President Wilson himself, and inquiring officially whether the action in question was—as they felt sure it must be—in contradiction with the President's east European policy. For it would be sad to think that abundant petroleum might have washed away many of the tribulations which the Rumanians had afterward to endure, and that loans accepted on onerous conditions would, as was hinted, have softened the hearts of those who had it in their power to render the existence of the nation sour or sweet.[144] "Look out," exclaimed a Rumanian to me. "You will see that we shall be spurned as Laodiceans, or worse, before the Conference is over." Rumania's external situation was even more perilous than her domestic plight. Situated between Russia and Hungary, she came more and more to resemble the iron between the hammer and the anvil. A well-combined move of the two anarchist states might have pulverized her. Alive to the danger, her spokesmen in Paris were anxious to guard against it, but the only hope they had at the moment was centered in the Great Powers, whose delegates at the Conference were discharging the functions which the League of Nations would be called on to fulfil whenever it became a real institution. And their past experience of the Great Powers' mode of action was not calculated to command their confidence. It was the Great Powers which, for their own behoof and without the slightest consideration for the interests of Rumania, had constrained that country to declare war against the Central Empires[145] and had made promises of effective support in the shape of Russian troops, war material of every kind, officers, and heavy artillery. But neither the promises of help nor the assurances that Germany's army of invasion would be immobilized were redeemed, and so far as one can now judge they ought never to have been made. For what actually came to pass—the invasion of the country by first-class German armies under Mackensen—might easily have been foreseen, and was actually foretold.[146] The entire country was put to sack, and everything of value that could be removed was carried off to Hungary, Germany, or Austria. The Allies lavished their verbal sympathies on the immolated nation, but did little else to succor it, and want and misery and disease played havoc with the people.

After the armistice things became worse instead of better. The Hungarians were permitted to violate the conditions and keep a powerful army out of all proportion to the area which they were destined to retain, and as the Allies disposed of no countering force in eastern Europe, their commands were scoffed at by the Budapest Cabinet. In the spring of 1919 the Bolshevists of Hungary waxed militant and threatened the peace of Rumania, whose statesmen respectfully sued for permission to occupy certain commanding positions which would have enabled their armies to protect the land from invasion. But the Duumviri in Paris negatived the request. They fancied that they understood the situation better than the people on the spot. Thereupon the Bolshevists, ever ready for an opportunity, seized upon the opening afforded them by the Supreme Council, attacked the Rumanians, and invaded their territory. Nothing abashed, the two Anglo-Saxon statesmen comforted M. Bratiano and his colleagues with the expression of their regret and the promise that tranquillity would not again be disturbed. The Supreme Council would see to that. But this promise, like those that preceded it, was broken.

The Rumanians went so far as to believe that the Supreme Council either had Bolshevist leanings or underwent secret influences—perhaps unwittingly—the nature of which it was not easy to ascertain. In support of these theories they urged that when the Rumanians were on the very point of annihilating the Red troops of Kuhn, it was the Supreme Council which interposed its authority to save them, and did save them effectually, when nothing else could have done it. That Kuhn was on the point of collapsing was a matter of common knowledge. A radio-telegram flashed from Budapest by one of his lieutenants contained this significant avowal: "He [Kuhn] has announced that the Hungarian forces are in flight. The troops which occupied a good position at the bridgehead of Gomi have abandoned it, carrying with them the men who were doing their duty. In Budapest preparations are going forward for equipping fifteen workmen's battalions." In other words, the downfall of Bolshevism had begun. The Rumanians were on the point of achieving it. Their troops on the bank of the river Tisza[147] were preparing to march on Budapest. And it was at that critical moment that the world-arbiters at the Conference who had anathematized the Bolshevists as the curse of civilization interposed their authority and called a halt. If they had solid grounds for intervening they were not avowed. M. Clemenceau sent for M. Bratiano and vetoed the march in peremptory terms which did scant justice to the services rendered and the sacrifices made by the Rumanian state. Secret arrangements, it was whispered, had been come to between agents of the Powers and Kuhn. At the time nobody quite understood the motive of the sudden change of disposition evinced by the Allies toward the Magyar Bolshevists. For it was assumed that they still regarded the Bolshevist leaders as outlaws. One explanation was that they objected to allow the Rumanian army alone to occupy the Hungarian capital. But that would not account for their neglect to despatch an Inter-Allied contingent to restore order in the city and country. For they remained absolutely inactive while Kuhn's supporters were rallying and consolidating their scattered and demoralized forces, and they kept the Rumanians from balking the Bolshevist work of preparing another attack. As one of their French critics[148] remarked, they dealt exclusively in negatives—some of them pernicious enough, whereas a positive policy was imperatively called for. To reconstruct a nation, not to say a ruined world, a series of contradictory vetoes is hardly sufficient. But another explanation of their attitude was offered which gained widespread acceptance. It will be unfolded presently.

The dispersed Bolshevist army, thus shielded, soon recovered its nerve, and, feeling secure on the Rumanian front, where the Allies held the invading troops immobilized, attacked the Slovaks and overran their country. For Bolshevism is by nature proselytizing. The Prague Cabinet was dismayed. The new-born Czechoslovak state was shaken. A catastrophe might, as it seemed, ensue at any moment. Rumania's troops were on the watch for the signal to resume their march, but it came not. The Czechoslovaks were soliciting it prayerfully. But the weak-kneed plenipotentiaries in Paris were minded to fight, if at all, with weapons taken from a different arsenal. In lieu of ordering the Rumanian troops to march on Budapest, they addressed themselves to the Bolshevist leader, Kuhn, summoned him to evacuate the Slovak country, and volunteered the promise that they would compel the Rumanians to withdraw. This amazing line of action was decided on by the secret Council of Three without the assent or foreknowledge of the nation to whose interests it ran counter and the head of whose government was rubbing shoulders with the plenipotentiaries every day. But M. Bratiano's existence and that of his fellow-delegate was systematically ignored. It is not easy to fathom the motives that inspired this supercilious treatment of the spokesman of a nation which was sacrificing its sons in the service of the Allies as well as its own. Personal antipathy, however real, cannot be assumed without convincing grounds to have been the mainspring.

But there was worse than the contemptuous treatment of a colleague who was also the chief Minister of a friendly state. If an order was to be given to the Rumanian government to recall its forces from the front which they occupied, elementary courtesy and political tact as well as plain common sense would have suggested its being communicated, in the first instance, to the chief of that government—who was then resident in Paris—as head of his country's delegation to the Conference. But that was not the course taken. The statesmen of the Secret Council had recourse to the radio, and, without consulting M. Bratiano, despatched a message "to the government in Bucharest" enjoining on it the withdrawal of the Rumanian army. For they were minded scrupulously to redeem their promise to the Bolshevists. One need not be a diplomatist to realize the amazement of "the Rumanian government" on receiving this abrupt behest. The feelings of the Premier, when informed of these underhand doings, can readily be imagined. And it is no secret that the temper of a large section of the Rumanian people was attuned by these petty freaks to sentiments which boded no good to the cause for which the Allies professed to be working. In September M. Bratiano was reported as having stigmatized the policy adopted by the Conference toward Rumania as being of a "malicious and dangerous character."[149]

The frontier to which the troops were ordered to withdraw had, as we saw, just been assigned to Rumania[150] without the assent of her government, and with a degree of secrecy and arbitrariness that gave deep offense, not only to her official representatives, but also to those parliamentarians and politicians who from genuine attachment or for peace' sake were willing to go hand in hand with the Entente. "If one may classify the tree by its fruits," exclaimed a Rumanian statesman in my hearing, "the great Three are unconscious Bolshevists. They are undermining respect for authority, tradition, plain, straightforward dealing, and, in the case of Rumania, are behaving as though their staple aim were to detach our nation from France and the Entente. And this aim is not unattainable. The Rumanian people were heart and soul with the French, but the bonds which were strong a short while ago are being weakened among an influential section of the people, to the regret of all Rumanian patriots."

The answer given by the "Rumanian government in Bucharest" to the peremptory order of the Secret Council was a reasoned refusal to comply. Rumania, taught by terrible experience, declined to be led once more into deadly peril against her own better judgment. Her statesmen, more intimately acquainted with the Hungarians than were Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Wilson, and M. Clemenceau, required guaranties which could be supplied only by armed forces—Rumanian or Allied. Unless and until Hungary received a government chosen by the free will of the people and capable of offering guaranties of good conduct, the troops must remain where they were. For the line which they occupied at the moment could be defended with four divisions, whereas the new one could not be held by less than seven or eight. The Council was therefore about to commit another fateful mistake, the consequences of which it was certain to shift to the shoulders of the pliant people. It was then that Rumania's leaders kicked against the pricks.

To return to the dispute between Bucharest and Paris: the Rumanian government would have been willing to conform to the desire of the Supreme Council and withdraw its troops if the Supreme Council would only make good its assurance and guarantee Rumania effectually from future attacks by the Hungarians. The proviso was reasonable, and as a measure of self-defense imperative. The safeguard asked for was a contingent of Allied force. But the two supreme councilors in Paris dealt only in counters. All they had to offer to M. Bratiano were verbal exhortations before the combat and lip-sympathy after defeat, and these the Premier rejected. But here, as in the case of the Poles, the representatives of the "Allied and Associated" Powers insisted. They were profuse of promises, exhortations, and entreaties before passing to threats—of guaranties they said nothing—but the Rumanian Premier, turning a deaf ear to cajolery and intimidation, remained inflexible. For he was convinced that their advice was often vitiated by gross ignorance and not always inspired by disinterestedness, while the orders they issued were hardly more than the velleities of well-meaning gropers in the dark who lacked the means of executing them.

The eminent plenipotentiaries, thus set at naught by a little state, ruminated on the embarrassing situation. In all such cases their practice had been to resign themselves to circumstances if they proved unable to bend circumstances to their schemes. It was thus that President Wilson had behaved when British statesmen declined even to hear him on the subject of the freedom of the seas, when M. Clemenceau refused to accept a peace that denied the Saar Valley and a pledge of military assistance to France, and when Japan insisted on the retrocession of Shantung. Toward Italy an attitude of firmness had been assumed, because owing to her economic dependence on Britain and the United States she could not indulge in the luxury of nonconformity. Hence the plenipotentiaries, and in particular Mr. Wilson, asserted their will inexorably and were painfully surprised that one of the lesser states had the audacity to defy it.

The circumstance that after their triumph over Italy the world's trustees were thus publicly flouted by a little state of eastern Europe was gall and wormwood to them. It was also a menace to the cause with which they were identified. None the less, they accepted the inevitable for the moment, pitched their voices in a lower key, and decided to approve the Rumanian thesis that Neo-Bolshevism in Hungary must be no longer bolstered up,[151] but be squashed vicariously. They accordingly invited the representatives of the three little countries on which the honor of waging these humanitarian wars in the anarchist east of Europe was to be conferred, and sounded them as to their willingness to put their soldiers in the field, and how many as to the numbers available. M. Bratiano offered eight divisions. The Czechoslovaks did not relish the project, but after some delay and fencing around agreed to furnish a contingent, whereas the Jugoslavs met the demand with a plain negative, which was afterward changed to acquiescence when the Council promised to keep the Italians from attacking them. As things turned out, none but the Rumanians actually fought the Hungarian Reds. Meanwhile the members of the American, British, and Italian missions in Hungary endeavored to reach a friendly agreement with the criminal gang in Budapest.

The plan of campaign decided on had Marshal Foch for its author. It was, therefore, business-like. He demanded a quarter of a million men,[152] to which it was decided that Rumania should contribute 120,000, Jugoslavia 50,000, and Czechoslovakia as many as she could conveniently afford. But the day before the preparations were to have begun,[153] Bela Kuhn flung his troops[154] against the Rumanians with initial success, drove them across the Tisza with considerable loss, took up commanding positions, and struck dismay into the members of the Supreme Council. The Semitic Dictator, with grim humor, explained to the crestfallen lawgivers, who were once more at fault, that a wanton breach of the peace was alien to his thoughts; that, on the contrary, his motive for action deserved high praise—it was to compel the rebellious Rumanians to obey the behest of the Conference and withdraw to their frontiers. The plenipotentiaries bore this gibe with dignity, and decided to have recourse once more to their favorite, and, indeed, only method—the despatch of exhortative telegrams. Of more efficacious means they were destitute. This time their message, which lacked a definite address, was presumably intended for the anti-Bolshevist population of Hungary, whom it indirectly urged to overthrow the Kuhn Cabinet and receive the promised reward—namely, the privilege of entering into formal relations with the Entente and signing the death-warrant of the Magyar state. It is not easy to see how this solution alone could have enabled the Supreme Council to establish normal conditions and tranquillity in the land. But the Duumvirate seemed utterly incapable of devising a coherent policy for central or eastern Europe. Even when Hungary had a government friendly to the Entente they never obtained any advantage from it. They had had no use for Count Karolyi. They had allowed things to slip and slide, and permitted—nay, helped—Bolshevism to thrive, although they had brand-marked it as a virulent epidemic to be drastically stamped out. Temper, education, and training disqualified them for seizing opportunity and pressing the levers that stood ready to their hand.

In consequence of the vacillation of the two chiefs, who seldom stood firm in the face of difficulties, the members of the predatory gang which concealed its alien origin under Magyar nationality and its criminal propensities[155] under a political mask had been enabled to go on playing an odious comedy, to the disgust of sensible people and the detriment of the new and enlarged states of Europe. For the cost of the Supreme Council's weakness had to be paid in blood and substance, little though the two delegates appeared to realize this. The extent to which the ruinous process was carried out would be incredible were it not established by historic facts and documents.

The permanent agents of the Powers in Hungary,[156] preferring conciliation to force, now exhorted the Hungarians to rid themselves of Kuhn and promised in return to expel the Rumanians from Hungarian territory once more and to have the blockade raised. At the close of July some Magyars from Austria met Kuhn at a frontier station[157] and strove to persuade him to withdraw quietly into obscurity, but he, confiding in the policy of the Allies and his star, scouted the suggestion. It was at this juncture that the Rumanians, pushing on to Budapest, resolved, come what might, to put an end to the intolerable situation and to make a clean job of it once for all. And they succeeded.

For Rumania's initial military reverse[158] was the result of a surprise attack by some eighty thousand men. But her troops rapidly regained their warlike spirit, recrossed the river Tisza, shattered the Neo-Bolshevist regime, and reached the environs of Budapest.

By the 1st of August the lawless band that was ruining the country relinquished the reins of power, which were taken over at first by a Socialist Cabinet of which an influential French press organ wrote: "The names of the new ... commissaries of the people tell us nothing, because their bearers are unknown. But the endings of their names tell us that most of them are, like those of the preceding government, of Jewish origin. Never since the inauguration of official communism did Budapest better deserve the appellation of Judapest, which was assigned to it by the late M. Lueger, chief of the Christian Socialists of Vienna. That is an additional trait in common with the Russian Soviets."[159]

The Rumanians presented a stiff ultimatum to the new Hungarian Cabinet. They were determined to safeguard their country and its neighbors from a repetition of the danger and of the sacrifices it entailed; in other words, to dictate the terms of a new armistice. The Powers demurred and ordered them to content themselves with the old one concluded by the Serbian Voyevod Mishitch and General Henrys in November of the preceding year and violated subsequently by the Magyars. But the objections to this course were many and unanswerable. In fact they were largely identical with the objections which the Supreme Council itself had offered to the Polish-Ukrainian armistice. And besides these there were others. For example, the Rumanians had had no hand or part in drafting the old armistice. Moreover it was clearly inapplicable to the fresh campaign which was waged and terminated nine months after it had been drawn up. Experience had shown that it was inadequate to guarantee public tranquillity, for it had not hindered Magyar attacks on the Rumanians and Czechoslovaks. The Rumanians, therefore, now that they had worsted their adversaries, were resolved to disarm them and secure a real peace. They decided to leave fifteen thousand troops for the maintenance of internal order.[160] Rumania's insistence on the delivery of live-stock, corn, agricultural machinery, and rolling-stock for railways was, it was argued, necessitated by want and justified by equity. For it was no more than partial reparation for the immense losses wantonly inflicted on the nation by the Magyars and their allies. Until then no other amends had been made or even offered. The Austrians, Hungarians, and Germans, during their two years' occupation of Rumania, had seized and carried off from the latter country two million five hundred thousand tons of wheat and hundreds of thousands of head of cattle, besides vast quantities of clothing, wool, skins, and raw material, while thousands of Rumanian homes were gutted and their contents taken away and sold in the Central Empires. Factories were stripped of their machinery and the railways of their engines and wagons. When Mackensen left there remained in Rumania only fifty locomotives out of the twelve hundred which she possessed before the war. The material, therefore, that Rumania removed from Hungary during the first weeks of the occupation represented but a small part of the quantities of which she had been despoiled during the war.

It was further urged that at the beginning the Rumanian delegates would have contented themselves with reparation for losses wantonly inflicted and for the restitution of the property wrongfully taken from them by their enemies, on the lines on which France had obtained this offset. They had asked for this, but were informed that their request could not be complied with. They were not even permitted to send a representative to Germany to point out to the Inter-Allied authorities the objects of which their nation had been robbed, as though the plunderers would voluntarily give up their ill-gotten stores! It was partly because of these restrictions that the Rumanian authorities resolved to take what belonged to them without more ado. And they could not, they said, afford to wait, because they were expecting an attack by the Russian Bolsheviki and it behooved them to have done with one foe before taking on another. These explanations irritated in lieu of calming the Supreme Council.

"Possibly," wrote the well-informed Temps, "Rumania would have been better treated if she had closed with certain proposals of loans on crushing terms or complied with certain demands for oil concessions."[161] Possibly. But surely problems of justice, equity, and right ought never to have been mixed up with commercial and industrial interests, whether with the connivance or by the carelessness of the holders of a vast trust who needed and should have merited unlimited confidence. It is neither easy nor edifying to calculate the harm which transactions of this nature, whether completed or merely inchoate, are capable of inflicting on the great community for whose moral as well as material welfare the Supreme Council was laboring in darkness against so many obstacles of its own creation. Is it surprising that the states which suffered most from these weaknesses of the potent delegates should have resented their misdirection and endeavored to help themselves as best they could? It may be blameworthy and anti-social, but it is unhappily natural and almost unavoidable. It is sincerely to be regretted that the art of stimulating the nations—about which the delegates were so solicitous—to enthusiastic readiness to accept the Council as the "moral guide of the world" should have been exercised in such bungling fashion.

The Supreme Council then feeling impelled to assert its dignity against the wilfulness of a small nation decided on ignoring alike the service and the disservice rendered by Rumania's action. Accordingly, it proceeded without reference to any of the recent events except the disappearance of the Bolshevist gang. Four generals were accordingly told off to take the conduct of Hungarian affairs into their hands despite their ignorance of the actual conditions of the problem.[162] They were ordered to disarm the Magyars, to deliver up Hungary's war material to the Allies, of whom only the Rumanians and the Czechoslovaks had taken the field against the enemy since the conclusion of the armistice the year before, and they were also to exercise their authority over the Rumanian victors and the Serbs, both of whom occupied Hungarian territory. The Temps significantly remarked that the Supreme Council, while not wishing to deal with any Hungarian government but one qualified to represent the country, "seems particularly eager to see resumed the importation of foreign wares into Hungary. Certain persons appear to fear that Rumania, by retaking from the Magyars wagons and engines, might check the resumption of this traffic."[163]

What it all came to was that the Great Powers, who had left Rumania to her fate when she was attacked by the Magyars, intervened the moment the assailed nation, helping itself, got the better of its enemy, and then they resolved to balk it of the fruits of victory and of the safeguards it would fain have created for the future. It was to rely upon the Supreme Council once more, to take the broken reed for a solid staff. That the Powers had something to urge in support of their interposition will not be denied. They rightly set forth that Rumania was not Hungary's only creditor. Her neighbors also possessed claims that must be satisfied as far as feasible, and equity prompted the pooling of all available assets. This plea could not be refuted. But the credit which the pleaders ought to have enjoyed in the eyes of the Rumanian nation was so completely sapped by their antecedents that no heed was paid to their reasoning, suasion, or promises.

Rumania, therefore, in requisitioning Hungarian property was formally in the wrong. On the other hand, it should be borne in mind that she, like other nations, was exasperated by the high-handed action of the Great Powers, who proceeded as though her good-will and loyalty were of no consequence to the pacification of eastern Europe.

After due deliberation the Supreme Council agreed upon the wording of a conciliatory message, not to the Rumanians, but to the Magyars, to be despatched to Lieutenant-Colonel Romanelli. The gist of it was the old refrain, "to carry out the terms of the armistice[164] and respect the frontiers traced by the Supreme Council[165] and we will protect you from the Rumanians, who have no authority from us. We are sending forthwith an Inter-Allied military commission[166] to superintend the disarmament and see that the Rumanian troops withdraw."

It cannot be denied that the Rumanian conditions were drastic. But it should be remembered that the provocation amounted almost to justification. And as for the crime of disobedience, it will not be gainsaid that a large part of the responsibility fell on the shoulders of the lawgivers in Paris, whose decrees, coming oracularly from Olympian heights without reference to local or other concrete circumstances, inflicted heavy losses in blood and substance on the ill-starred people of Rumania. And to make matters worse, Rumania's official representatives at the Conference had been not merely ignored, but reprimanded like naughty school-children by a harsh dominie and occasionally humiliated by men whose only excuse was nervous tenseness in consequence of overwork combined with morbid impatience at being contradicted in matters which they did not understand. Other states had contemplated open rebellion against the big ferrule of the "bosses," and more than once the resolution was taken to go on strike unless certain concessions were accorded them. Alone the Rumanians executed their resolve.

Naturally the destiny-weavers of peoples and nations in Paris were dismayed at the prospect and apprehensive lest the Rumanians should end the war in their own way. They despatched three notes in quick succession to the Bucharest government, one of which reads like a peevish indictment hastily drafted before the evidence had been sifted or even carefully read. It raked up many of the old accusations that had been leveled against the Rumanians, tacked them on to the crime of insubordination, and without waiting for an answer—assuming, in fact, that there could be no satisfactory answer—summoned them to prove publicly by their acts that they accepted and were ready to execute in good faith the policy decided upon by the Conference.[167]

That note seemed unnecessarily offensive and acted on the Rumanians as a powerful irritant,[168] besides exposing the active members of the Supreme Council to scathing criticism. The Rumanians asked their Entente friends in private to outline the policy which they were accused of countering, and were told in reply that it was beyond the power of the most ingenious hair-splitting casuist to define or describe. "As for us," wrote one of the stanchest supporters of the Entente in French journalism, "who have followed with attention the labors and the utterances, written and oral, of the Four, the Five, the Ten, of the Supreme and Superior Councils, we have not yet succeeded in discovering what was the 'policy decided by the Conference.' We have indeed heard or read countless discourses pronounced by the choir-masters. They abound in noble thought, in eloquent expositions, in protests, and in promises. But of aught that could be termed a policy we have not found a trace."[169] This verdict will be indorsed by the historian.

The Rumanians seemed in no hurry to reply to the Council's three notes. They were said to be too busy dealing out what they considered rough and ready justice to their enemies, and were impatient of the intervention of their "friends." They seized rolling-stock, cattle, agricultural implements, and other property of the kind that had been stolen from their own people and sent the booty home without much ado. Work of this kind was certain to be accompanied by excesses and the Conference received numerous protests from the aggrieved inhabitants. But on the whole Rumania, at any rate during the first few weeks of the occupation, had the substantial sympathy of the largest and most influential section of the world's press. People declared that they were glad to see the haze of self-righteousness and cant at last dispelled by a whiff of wholesome egotism. From the outspoken comments of the most widely circulating journals in France and Britain the dictators in Paris, who were indignant that the counsels of the strong should carry so little weight in eastern Europe, could acquaint themselves with the impression which their efforts at cosmic legislation were producing among the saner elements of mankind.

In almost every language one could read words of encouragement to the recalcitrant Rumanians for having boldly burst the irksome bonds in which the peoples of the world were being pinioned. "It is our view," wrote one firm adherent of the Entente, "that having proved incapable of protecting the Rumanians in their hour of danger, our alliance cannot to-day challenge the safeguards which they have won for themselves."[170]

"If liberty had her old influence," one read in another popular journal,[171] "the Great Powers would not be bringing pressure to bear on Rumania with the object of saving Hungary from richly deserved punishment." "Instead of nagging the Rumanians," wrote an eminent French publicist, "they would do much better to keep the Turks in hand. If the Turks in despair, in order to win American sympathies, proclaim themselves socialists, syndicalists, or laborists, will President Wilson permit them to renovate Armenia and other places after the manner of Jinghiz Khan?"[172]

But what may have weighed with the Supreme Council far more than the disapproval of publicists were its own impotence, the undignified figure it was cutting, and the injury that was being done to the future League of Nations by the impunity with which one of the lesser states could thus set at naught the decisions of its creators and treat them with almost the same disrespect which they themselves had displayed toward the Rumanian delegates in Paris. They saw that once their energetic representations were ignored by the Bucharest government they were at the end of their means of influencing it. To compel obedience by force was for the time being out of the question. In these circumstances the only issue left them was to make a virtue of necessity and veer round to the Rumanian point of view as unobtrusively as might be, so as to tide over the transient crisis. And that was the course which they finally struck out.

Matters soon came to the culminating point. The members of the Allied Military Mission had received full powers to force the commanders of the troops of occupation to obey the decisions of the Conference, and when they were confronted with M. Diamandi, the ex-Minister to Petrograd, they issued their orders in the name of the Supreme Council. "We take orders here only from our own government, which is in Bucharest," was the answer they received. The Rumanians have a proverb which runs: "Even a donkey will not fall twice into the same quicksand," and they may have quoted it to General Gorton when refusing to follow the Allies after their previous painful experience. Then the mission telegraphed to Paris for further instructions.[173] In the meanwhile the Rumanian government had sent its answer to the three notes of the Council. And its tenor was firm and unyielding. Undeterred by menaces, M. Bratiano maintained that he had done the right thing in sending troops to Budapest, imposing terms on Hungary and re-establishing order. As a matter of fact he had rendered a sterling service to all Europe, including France and Britain. For if Kuhn and his confederates had contrived to overrun Rumania, the Great Powers would have been morally bound to hasten to the assistance of their defeated ally. The press was permitted to announce that the Council of Five was preparing to accept the Rumanian position. The members of the Allied Military Mission were informed that they were not empowered to give orders to the Rumanians, but only to consult and negotiate with them, whereby all their tact and consideration were earnestly solicited.

But the palliatives devised by the delegates were unavailing to heal the breach. After a while the Council, having had no answer to its urgent notes, decided to send an ultimatum to Rumania, calling on her to restore the rolling-stock which she had seized and to evacuate the Hungarian capital. The terms of this document were described as harsh.[174] Happily, before it was despatched the Council learned that the Rumanian government had never received the communications nor seventy others forwarded by wireless during the same period. Once more it had taken a decision without acquainting itself of the facts. Thereupon a special messenger[175] was sent to Bucharest with a note "couched in stern terms," which, however, was "milder in tone" than the ultimatum.

To go back for a moment to the elusive question of motive, which was not without influence on Rumania's conduct. Were the action and inaction of the plenipotentiaries merely the result of a lack of cohesion among their ideas? Or was it that they were thinking mainly of the fleeting interests of the moment and unwilling to precipitate their conceptions of the future in the form of a constructive policy? The historian will do well to leave their motives to another tribunal and confine himself to facts, which even when carefully sifted are numerous and significant enough.

During the progress of the events just sketched there were launched certain interesting accounts of what was going on below the surface, which had such impartial and well-informed vouchers that the chronicler of the Conference cannot pass them over in silence. If true, as they appear to be, they warrant the belief that two distinct elements lay at the root of the Secret Council's dealings with Rumania. One of them was their repugnance to her whole system of government, with its survivals of feudalism, anti-Semitism, and conservatism. Associated with this was, people alleged, a wish to provoke a radical and, as they thought, beneficent change in the entire regime by getting rid of its chiefs. This plan had been successfully tried against MM. Orlando and Sonnino in Italy. Their solicitude for this latter aim may have been whetted by a personal lack of sympathy for the Rumanian delegates, with whom the Anglo-Saxon chiefs hardly ever conversed. It was no secret that the Rumanian Premier found it exceedingly difficult to obtain an audience of his colleague President Wilson, from whom he finally parted almost as much a stranger as when he first arrived in Paris.

It may not be amiss to record an instance of the methods of the Supreme Council, for by putting himself in the place of the Rumanian Premier the reader may the more clearly understand his frame of mind toward that body. In June the troops of Moritz (or Bela) Kuhn had inflicted a severe defeat on the Czechoslavs. Thereupon the Secret Council of Four or Five, whose shortsighted action was answerable for the reverse, decided to remonstrate with him. Accordingly they requested him to desist from the offensive. Only then did it occur to them that if he was to withdraw his armies behind the frontiers, he must be informed where these frontiers were. They had already been determined in secret by the three great statesmen, who carefully concealed them not merely from an inquisitive public, but also from the states concerned. The Rumanian, Jugoslav and Czechoslovak delegates were, therefore, as much in the dark on the subject as were rank outsiders and enemies. But as soon as circumstances forced the hand of all the plenipotentiaries the secret had to be confided to them all.[176] The Hungarian Dictator pleaded that if his troops had gone out of bounds it was because the frontiers were unknown to him. The Czechoslovaks respectfully demurred to one of the boundaries along the river Ipol which it was difficult to justify and easy to rectify. But the Rumanian delegation, confronted with the map, met the decision with a frank protest. For it amounted to the abandonment of one of their three vital irreducible claims which they were not empowered to renounce. Consequently they felt unable to acquiesce in it. But the Supreme Council insisted. The second delegate, M. Misu, was in consequence obliged to start at once for Bucharest to consult with the King and the Cabinet and consider what action the circumstances called for. In the meantime, the entire question, and together with it some of the practical consequences involved by the tentative solution, remained in suspense.

When certain clauses of the Peace Treaty, which, although they materially affected Rumania, had been drafted without the knowledge of her plenipotentiaries, were quite ready, the Rumanian Premier was summoned to take cognizance of them. Their tenor surprised and irritated him. As he felt unable to assent to them, and as the document was to be presented to the enemy in a day or two, he deemed it his duty to mention his objections at once. But hardly had he begun when M. Clemenceau arose and exclaimed, "M. Bratiano, you are here to listen, not to comment." Stringent measures may have been considered useful and dictatorial methods indispensable in default of reasoning or suasion, but it was surely incumbent on those who employed them to choose a form which would deprive them of their sting or make them less personally painful.

For whatever one may think of the wisdom of the policy adopted by the Supreme Council toward the unprivileged states, it would be difficult to justify the manner in which they imposed it. Patience, tact, and suasion are indispensable requisites in men who assume the functions of leaders and guides, yet know that military force alone is inadequate to shape the future after their conception. The delegates could look only to moral power for the execution of their far-reaching plans, yet they spurned the means of acquiring it. The best construction one can put upon their action will represent it as the wrecking of the substance by the form. By establishing a situation of force throughout Europe the Council created and sanctioned the principle that it must be maintained by force.

But the affronted nations did not stop at this mild criticism. They assailed the policy itself, cast suspicion on the disinterestedness of the motives that inspired it, and contributed thereby to generate an atmosphere of distrust in which the frail organism that was shortly to be called into being could not thrive. Contemplated through this distorting medium, one set of delegates was taunted with aiming at a monopoly of imperialism and the other with rank hypocrisy. It is superfluous to remark that the idealism and lofty aims of the President of the United States were never questioned by the most reckless Thersites. The heaviest charges brought against him were weakness of will, exaggerated self-esteem, impatience of contradiction, and a naive yearning for something concrete to take home with him, in the shape of a covenant of peoples.

The reports circulating in the French capital respecting vast commercial enterprises about to be inaugurated by English-speaking peoples and about proposals that the governments of the countries interested should facilitate them, were destructive of the respect due to statesmen whose attachment to lofty ideals should have absorbed every other motive in their ethico-political activity. Thus it was affirmed by responsible politicians that an official representative of an English-speaking country gave expression to the view, which he also attributed to his government, that henceforth his country should play a much larger part in the economic life of eastern Europe than any other nation. This, he added, was a conscious aim which would be steadily pursued, and to the attainment of which he hoped the politicians and their people would contribute. So far this, it may be contended, was perfectly legitimate.

But it was further affirmed, and not by idle quidnuncs, that one of Rumania's prominent men had been informed that Rumania could count on the good-will and financial assistance of the United States only if her Premier gave an assurance that, besides the special privileges to be conferred on the Jewish minority in his country, he would also grant industrial and commercial concessions to certain Jewish groups and firms who reside and do business in the United States. And by way of taking time by the forelock one or more of these firms had already despatched representatives to Rumania to study and, if possible, earmark the resources which they proposed to exploit.

Now, to expand the trade of one's country is a legitimate ambition, and to hold that Jewish firms are the best qualified to develop the resources of Rumania is a tenable position. But to mix up any commercial scheme with the ethical regeneration of Europe is, to put it mildly, impolitic. However unimpeachable the motives of the promoter of such a project, it is certain to damage both causes which he has at heart. But the report does not leave the matter here. It goes on to state that a very definite proposal, smacking of an ultimatum, was finally presented, which set before the Rumanians two alternatives from which they were to choose—either the concessions asked for, which would earn for them the financial assistance of the United States, or else no concessions and no help.

At a Conference, the object of which was the uplifting of the life of nations from the squalor of sordid ambitions backed by brutal force, to ideal aims and moral relationship, haggling and chaffering such as this seemed wholly out of place. It reminded one of "those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting" in the temple of Jerusalem who were one day driven out with "a scourge of small cords." The Rumanians hoped that the hucksters in the latter-day temple of peace might be got rid of in a similar way; one of them suggested boldly asking President Wilson himself to say what he thought of the policy underlying the disconcerting proposal....

The other alleged element of the Supreme Council's attitude needs no qualification. The mystery that enwrapped the orders from the Conference which suddenly arrested the march of the Rumanian and Allied troops, when they were nearing Budapest for the purpose of overthrowing Bela Kuhn, never perplexed those who claimed to possess trustworthy information about the goings-on between certain enterprising officers belonging some to the Allied Army of Occupation and others to the Hungarian forces. One of these transactions is alleged to have taken place between Kuhn himself, who is naturally a shrewd observer and hard bargain-driver, and a certain financial group which for obvious reasons remained nameless. The object of the compact was the bestowal on the group of concessions in the Banat in return for an undertaking that the Bolshevist Dictator would be left in power and subsequently honored by an invitation to the Conference. The plenipotentiaries' command arresting the march against Kuhn and their conditional promise to summon him to the Conference, dovetail with this contract. These undeniable coincidences are humiliating. The nexus between them was discovered and announced before the stipulations were carried out.

The Banat had been an apple of discord ever since the close of hostilities. The country, inhabited chiefly by Rumanians, but with a considerable admixture of Magyar and Saxon elements, is one of the richest unexploited regions in Europe. Its mines of gold, zinc, lead, coal, and iron offer an irresistible temptation to pushing capitalists and their governments, who feel further attracted by the credible announcement that it also possesses oil in quantities large enough to warrant exploitation. It was partly in order to possess herself of these abundant resources and create an accomplished fact that Serbia, who also founded her claim on higher ground, laid hands on the administration of the Banat. But the experiment was disappointing. The Jugoslavs having failed to maintain themselves there, the bargain just sketched was entered into by officers of the Hungarian and Allied armies. For concession-hunters are not fastidious about the nationality or character of those who can bestow what they happen to be seeking.

This stroke of jobbery had political consequences. That was inevitable. For so long as the Banat remained in Rumania or Serbian hands it could not be alienated in favor of any foreign group. Therefore secession from both those states was a preliminary condition to economic alienation. The task was bravely tackled. An "independent republic" was suddenly added to the states of Europe. This amazing creation, which fitted in with the Balkanizing craze of the moment, was the work of a few wire-pullers in which the easy-going inhabitants had neither hand nor part. Indeed, they were hardly aware that the Republic of the Banat had been proclaimed. The amateur state-builders were obliging officers of the two armies, and behind them were speculators and concession-hunters. It was obvious that the new community, as it contained a very small population for an independent state, would require a protector. Its sponsors, who had foreseen this, provided for it by promising to assign the humanitarian role of protectress of the Banat Republic to democratic France. And French agents were on the spot to approve the arrangement. Thus far the story, of which I have given but the merest outline.[177]

In this compromising fashion then Bela Kuhn was left for the time being in undisturbed power, and none of his friends had any fear that he would be driven out by the Allies so long as he contrived to hit it off with the Hungarians. Should these turn away from him, however, the cosmopolitan financiers, whose cardinal virtues are suppleness and adaptability, would readily work with his successor, whoever he might be. The few who knew of this quickening of high ideals with low intrigue were shocked by the light-hearted way in which under the aegis of the Conference a discreditable pact was made with the "enemy of the human race," a grotesque regime foisted on a simple-minded people without consideration for the principle of self-determination, and the very existence of the Czechoslovak Republic imperiled. Indeed, for a brief while it looked as though the Bolshevist forces of the Ukraine and Russia would effect a junction with the troops of Bela Kuhn and shatter eastern Europe to shreds. To such dangerous extent did the Supreme Council indirectly abet the Bolshevist peace-breakers against the Rumanians and Czechoslovak allies.

It was at this conjuncture that a Rumanian friend remarked to me: "The apprehension which our people expressed to you some months ago when they rejected the demand for concessions has been verified by events. Please remember that when striking the balance of accounts."

The fact could not be blinked that in the camp of the Allies there was a serious schism. The partizans of the Supreme Council accused the Bucharest government of secession, and were accused in turn of having misled their Rumanian partners, of having planned to exploit them economically, of having favored their Bolshevist invaders, and pursued a policy of blackmail. The rights and wrongs of this quarrel had best be left to another tribunal. What can hardly be gainsaid is that in a general way the Rumanians—and not these alone—were implicitly classed as people of a secondary category, who stood to gain by every measure for their good which the culture-bearers in Paris might devise. These inferior nations were all incarnate anachronisms, relics of dark ages which had survived into an epoch of democracy and liberty, and it now behooved them to readjust themselves to that. Their institutions must be modernized, their Old World conceptions abandoned, and their people taught to imitate the progressive nations of the West. What the populations thought and felt on the subject was irrelevant, they being less qualified to judge what was good for them than their self-constituted guides and guardians. To the angry voices which their spokesmen uplifted no heed need be paid, and passive resistance could be overcome by coercion. This modified version of Carlyle's doctrine would seem to be at the root of the Supreme Council's action toward the lesser nations generally and in especial toward Rumania.

POLAND AND THE SUPREME COUNCIL

This frequent misdirection by the Supreme Council, however one may explain it, created an electric state of the political atmosphere among all nations whose interests were set down or treated as "limited," and more than one of them, as we saw, contemplated striking out a policy of passive resistance. As a matter of fact some of them timidly adopted it more than once, almost always with success and invariably with impunity. It was thus that the Czechoslovaks—the most docile of them all—disregarding the injunctions of the Conference, took possession of contentious territory,[178] and remained in possession of it for several months, and that the Jugoslavs occupied a part of the district of Klagenfurt and for a long time paid not the slightest heed to the order issued by the Supreme Council to evacuate it in favor of the Austrians, and that the Poles applied the same tactics to eastern Galicia. The story of this last revolt is characteristic alike of the ignorance and of the weakness of the Powers which had assumed the functions of world-administrators. During the hostilities between the Ruthenians of Galicia and the Poles the Council, taunted by the press with the numerous wars that were being waged while the world's peace-makers were chatting about cosmic politics in the twilight of the Paris conclave, issued an imperative order that an armistice must be concluded at once. But the Poles appealed to events, which swiftly settled the matter as they anticipated. Neither the Supreme Council nor the agents it employed had a real grasp of the east European situation, or of the role deliberately assigned to Poland by its French sponsors—that of superseding Russia as a bulwark against Germany in the East—or of the local conditions. Their action, as was natural in these circumstances, was a sequence of gropings in the dark, of incongruous behests, exhortations, and prohibitions which discredited them in the eyes of those on whose trust and docility the success of their mission depended.

Consciousness of these disadvantages may have had much to do with the rigid secrecy which the delegates maintained before their desultory talks ripened into discussions. In the case of Poland, as of Rumania, the veil was opaque, and was never voluntarily lifted. One day[179] the members of the Polish delegation, eager to get an inkling of what had been arranged by the Council of Four about Dantzig, requested M. Clemenceau to apprize them at least of the upshot if not of the details. The French Premier, who has a quizzing way and a keen sense of humor, replied, "On the 26th inst. you will learn the precise terms." But Poland's representative insisted and pleaded suasively for a hint of what had been settled. The Premier finally consented and said, "Tell the General Secretary of the Conference, M. Dutasta, from me, that he may make the desired communication to you." The delegate accordingly repaired to M. Dutasta, preferred his request, and received this reply: "M. Clemenceau may say what he likes. His words do not bind the Conference. Before I consider myself released from secrecy I must have the consent of all his colleagues as well. If you would kindly bring me their express authorization I will communicate the information you demand." That closed the incident.