John Passos - Mr. Wilson's War

House was preoccupied with his task: “I convinced him,” House dictated to the faithful Miss Denton when she typed out his diary, “I think, for the first time that a League of Nations was for the best interests of France … I called his attention to the fact that today there was only one great military power on the Continent of Europe and that was France … There was no balance of power so far as the Continent was concerned, because Russia had disappeared and both Germany and Austria had gone under … I asked whether or not in the circumstances France would not feel safer if England and America were in a position where they would be compelled to come to the aid of France in the event another nation like Germany should try to crush her … If she lost this chance which the United States offered through the League of Nations it would never come again … Wilson could force it through because, with all the brag and bluster of the Senate, they would not dare defeat a treaty made in agreement with the Allies, and thereby continue alone the war with Germany or make a separate peace.”

Clemenceau in his Splendeur et Misère de la Victoire described House with approval as “a supercivilized person escaped from the wilds of Texas, who sees everything, understands everything, and while never doing anything but what he thinks fit, knew how to gain the ear and the respect of everybody.” Certainly he wanted House to think well of him.

Maybe he really was convinced, for the moment. “The old man seemed to see it all,” noted House, “and became enthusiastic. He placed both hands on my shoulders and said, ‘You are right. I am for the League of Nations as you have it in mind and you may count upon me to work with you.’ ”

House took advantage of the Tiger’s enthusiasm to bring up the troublesome matter of reparations. Certain sections of the French press, known to be “inspired” by the government, were beginning to call for the cancellation of American war debts, at the same time demanding incredible billions in reparations from Germany. The Germans must not only be made to pay the whole cost of the war and repair all the damage the war had done, but they must furnish pensions for Allied veterans. “I urged him to use his influence to discourage such schemes. They were doing harm to France and would eventually prejudice the Americans against her.”

When House finally ushered Clemenceau into the meeting of the commissioners, it was obvious that the colonel’s absence had lasted too long. The President had been left to mark time with what he’d come to consider a group of dunderheads. Observers noted the chill in Wilson’s manner. Some dated from that moment the President’s alienation from his confidential colonel.

During the first days of January all Paris tingled with expectation. The city had never been more crowded. The population awaited the opening of the Peace Conference as they would await the opening of the season of horseracing or a world’s fair. People resorted to every conceivable intrigue to obtain admission to the opening session set for the Salon de l’Orloge at the Quai d’Orsay.

Every great hostelry flaunted the flag of some foreign potentate. The less expensive hôtels meublés were packed with humbler representatives of every nation, tribe, enclave, minority on the Eurasian continent. In uniform and out of uniform Greeks, Macedonians, Serbs, Montenegrins, Croats, Slovenes, Czechs and Slovaks, Transylvanians, Ukrainians, Galicians, Poles, Lithuanians, Esthonians, Latvians milled in the lobbies. There were robed Arabs of the Hedjaz chaperoned by legendary young Colonel Lawrence.

There were Palestine Arabs and Arabs of the Mespot, Persians, Kurds, Syrians, Christian Lebanese and Moslem Lebanese; representatives of Armenia and Azerbaidjan and Caucasian Georgia. There were Jewish Zionists, and contesting factions of Poles and Silesians and an envoy from the Duchy of Teschen.

Luxemburg had its mission, and Lichtenstein. A Swedish committee had come to ask for the Aaland Islands. Danish diplomats arrived to demand Schleswig-Holstein. Each group wanted something at the expense of its neighbors.

The American Commissioners Plenipotentiary had their offices at 4 Place de la Concorde in a rambling suite which included the old cabinets particuliers upstairs from Maxims, with their memories of the grand dukes and the superannuated whoopee of the Second Empire. Navy yeomen were in charge: Harold Nicolson remarked that the place smelled like a battleship. There security was rigorous. Marines scrutinized passes so sharply that many an important personage was left kicking his heels in the guardroom while clerks scuttled about looking for his identification. At the entrance swarthy delegations stormed around the tall immovable sentries begging for appointments with “Monsieur le Président Veelson.”

Disappointed there they would troop up the Champs Elysées to the Hotel Astoria near the Arc de Triomphe, where the British delegations had their offices. Every province of the empire on which the sun never set had its representative, with attendant bevies of experts and specialists. The entrance was barred to foreign inroads by a cordon of Tommies resplendent with brasspolish and pipeclay.

Around the edges of the recognized delegations hovered all sorts of adventurers peddling oil concessions or manganese mines, pretenders to dukedoms and thrones, cranks with shortcuts to Utopia in their briefcases, secret agents, art dealers, rug salesmen, procurers and pimps. Petites femmes solicited strangers on the boulevards with scraps of all the languages of Europe. Restaurants and nightclubs were packed to the last table. Taxis were at a premium. Business boomed at the Maison des Nations.

Even the Seine was in flood. The autumn rains had turned to intermittent slushy snow. The quais and lowlying streets were awash and the brown water swirled as high as the carved keystones of the bridges.

Excited by the carnival atmosphere, thrilled by the hope of humane and rational solutions, the younger men among the British and American delegations got along famously. They swapped back copies of The Nation and The New Republic for The Spectator or The Round Table. They exchanged luncheons at the Crillon for luncheons at the Hotel Majestic, where the British had imported an entire London staff, from headwaiter to dishwasher, so that their tabletalk should not be reported to foreign ears.

At the Crillon the eager young men might be rewarded with a glimpse of Colonel House’s receding chin as he slipped with silent tread down a corridor, but the important personages among the Americans kept out of sight.

At the Majestic the British leaders ate in full view. While you talked of the League the tall figure of its fosterfather, Lord Robert Cecil of the bulging forehead and bushy hair, might be seen unfolding like a jackknife from behind a table.

For any world problem you could find an expert with the facts at his fingertips. A great number of dedicated and wellintentioned and well-prepared people were putting all they had into solving the world’s ills. The American specialists were encouraged to find such likemindedness among the British. Such of them as could get through the language barrier found occasional young Frenchmen unexpectedly in accord. Full of hope they compared their plans to fashion a just peace and a League of Nations that would work.

Left in a certain isolation by the fact that the livelier spirits tended to foregather in Colonel House’s anterooms, the Secretary of State kept his nose to the grindstone. Lansing was a conscientious man. He liked precision. He was convinced that careful agenda must be prepared for the coming meetings. Over the Christmas period he suffered agonies from an ulcerated tooth. Mrs. Lansing was not a bit well. Illness in the family did not keep him from carefully elaborating a skeleton plan for a treaty for the President’s use, or from cooperating with House’s specialists in drawing up a tentative formula for a League of Nations. When he tried to explain his schemes to the President, he discovered, to his mortification, that the President was not in the least interested.