ish problem had to be postponed
until the Washington government was authorized to accept or compelled to
refuse a mandate for the Sultan's dominions, and in the meanwhile mass
massacres of Greeks and Armenians were organized anew.

A large section of the press and the majority of the delegates strongly
condemned the interpolation of the Covenant. What they demanded was
first the conclusion of a solid peace and then the establishment of
suitable international safeguards. For to be safeguarded, peace must
first exist. "A suit of armor without the warrior inside is but a
useless ornament," wrote one of the American journals.[94]

But the course advocated by Mr. Wilson was open to another direct and
telling objection. Peace between the belligerent adversaries was, in the
circumstances, conceivable only on the old lines of strategic frontiers
and military guaranties. The Supreme Council implied as much in its
official reply to the criticisms offered by the Austrians to the
conditions imposed on them, making the admission that Italy's new
northern frontiers were determined by considerations of strategy. The
plan for the governance of the world by a league of pacific peoples, on
the other hand, postulated the abolition of war preparations, including
strategic frontiers. Consequently the more satisfactory the Treaty the
more unfavorable would be the outlook for the moral reconstitution of
the family of nations, and _vice versa_. And to interlace the two would
be to necessitate a compromise which would necessarily mar both.

In effect the split among the delegates respecting their aims and
interests led to a tacit understanding among the leaders on the basis of
give-and-take, the French and British acquiescing in Mr. Wilson's
measures for working out his Covenant--the draft of which was
contributed by the British--and the President, giving way to them on
matters said to affect their countries' vital interests. How smoothly
this method worked when great issues were not at stake may be inferred
from the perfunctory way in which it was decided that the Kaiser's trial
should take place in London. A few days before the Treaty was signed
there was a pause in the proceedings of the Supreme Council during which
the secretary was searching for a mislaid document. Mr. Lloyd George,
looking up casually and without addressing any one in particular,
remarked, "I suppose none of you has any objection to the Kaiser being
tried in London?" M.