ER III

THE CONFERENCE

In Chapters IV. and V. I shall study in some detail the economic and
financial provisions of the Treaty of Peace with Germany. But it will be
easier to appreciate the true origin of many of these terms if we
examine here some of the personal factors which influenced their
preparation. In attempting this task, I touch, inevitably, questions of
motive, on which spectators are liable to error and are not entitled to
take on themselves the responsibilities of final judgment. Yet, if I
seem in this chapter to assume sometimes the liberties which are
habitual to historians, but which, in spite of the greater knowledge
with which we speak, we generally hesitate to assume towards
contemporaries, let the reader excuse me when he remembers how greatly,
if it is to understand its destiny, the world needs light, even if it is
partial and uncertain, on the complex struggle of human will and
purpose, not yet finished, which, concentrated in the persons of four
individuals in a manner never paralleled, made them, in the first months
of 1919, the microcosm of mankind.

In those parts of the Treaty with which I am here concerned, the lead
was taken by the French, in the sense that it was generally they who
made in the first instance the most definite and the most extreme
proposals. This was partly a matter of tactics. When the final result is
expected to be a compromise, it is often prudent to start from an
extreme position; and the French anticipated at the outset--like most
other persons--a double process of compromise, first of all to suit the
ideas of their allies and associates, and secondly in the course of the
Peace Conference proper with the Germans themselves. These tactics were
justified by the event. Clemenceau gained a reputation for moderation
with his colleagues in Council by sometimes throwing over with an air of
intellectual impartiality the more extreme proposals of his ministers;
and much went through where the American and British critics were
naturally a little ignorant of the true point at issue, or where too
persistent criticism by France's allies put them in a position which
they felt as invidious, of always appearing to take the enemy's part and
to argue his case. Where, therefore, British and American interests were
not seriously involved their criticism grew slack, and some provisions
were thus passed which the French themselves did not take very
seriously, and for which the elevent