"The Council is anxious not to enter into unnecessary controversy, or to inflict needless pain on your Excellency and the delegates who accompany you. It wishes well to the Turkish people and admires their excellent qualities. But it can not admit that among those qualities are to be counted capacity to rule over alien races. The experiment has been tried too long and too often for there to be the least doubt as to its result.

"There is no case to be found, either in Europe or Asia or Africa, in which the establishment of Turkish rule in any country has not been followed by a diminution of material prosperity and a fall in the level of culture. Nor is there any case to be found where the withdrawal of Turkish rule has not been followed by a growth in material prosperity and a rise in the level of culture. Neither among the Christians of Europe nor among the Moslems of Syria, Arabia, and Africa has the Turk done other than destroy wherever he has conquered. Never has he shown himself able to develop in peace what he has won by war. Not in this direction do his talents lie."

On May 11th, 1920, Tewfik Pasha and three associates received the Peace Treaty in the Clock Room of the Quai d'Orsay. The plenipotentiaries in costume would have been hard to distinguish from so many Frenchmen, but tho they displayed every evidence of dejection they accepted without outward emotion the document which was conceded in Paris "to contain more elements of trouble than does the German pact." The entire ceremony, including a short speech by Premier Millerand, blaming Turkey for prolonging the war, did not last more than a few moments.

By the terms of the Treaty provisions were made for the Dardanelles as well as the straits of the Sea of Marmora and of the Bosporus to be placed in control of an allied commission composed of Great Britain, France, Japan, Greece and Rumania. All of these waterways were to be open for free navigation both in time of peace and in time of war. If the United States so determined, she might become a member of the commission, tho it was evident that it would be difficult for her to do so without also becoming a member of the League of Nations, seeing that, in the event of hostile acts on the part of Turkey, no movement unless directed by the council of the League could be made against her.

It was also provided by the Treaty that Russia and Bulgaria, when they had been admitted to membership of the League of Nations, might become members of the commission of control. The Turks were to recognize the independence of Armenia, and all questions concerning the Turko-Armenia frontier, Erzerum, Trebizond, Van, and Bitlis, as well as Armenia's access to the sea, were to be submitted to the arbitration of the President of the United States. Constantinople, altho ostensibly remaining under the sovereignty of the Sultan, was to be occupied permanently by a small 357

V. X-24

force of Allied troops, while the boundries of Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Syria were to be finally established by special commissions. The Treaty was bitterly attacked by the French press. It was insisted that President Wilson's principles had been studiously avoided, and it was openly hinted that the agreement of France to many of its terms was only obtained because of her desire to secure the aid of Mr. Lloyd-George in pressing the terms of the German Treaty.14

Finally, after many protestations, the Turkish delegates signed the Treaty at Sèvres on August 10, 1920.

The Peace Treaty with Bulgaria was handed to the Bulgarian plenipotentiaries by the Supreme Council of the Conference on September 19, 1919, at the Foreign Office in Paris. In the terms the question of permitting Bulgaria to have an outlet on the sea through western Thrace was left for future determination by the Allied Governments. It was stipulated, however, that, whatever solution was adopted by the Allies, an "economic" outlet to the Ægean would be guaranteed to Bulgaria. The Powers reserved the right to return all or part of the territory in Thrace to Bulgaria, to transfer part of it to Greece, to incorporate the remainder with eastern Thrace, as an international State, or to make any other solution they chose of the Thracian question. The matter of permitting Bulgaria to have a pathway to the Egean had been one of the grave questions that disturbed the serenity of the Peace Conference. President Wilson had urged this concession, contending that if an outlet to the sea was denied a foundation for future wars might be laid. If the Allies, in framing the treaty for Bulgaria, had thought only of the efforts and sacrifices which that little nation had imposed upon them in the war, the terms might well have been made of the harshest. Had Bulgaria remained on their side, or been neutral, the subjugation and ruin of Serbia in 1915 would not have occurred, and the tragic-comedy of Greece under Constantine would have been avoided. More than that, with Bulgaria standing aside, developments of the highest importance would have come in Turkey. Even Constantinople might have fallen, the Straits might have been opened, and Russia might not have been longer cut off from the fellowship of the western Allies.

To what extent Bulgaria made atonement for all this by her surrender, in September, 1918, thus giving evidence of the collapse of the Quadruple Alliance, it would be hard to say, altho she did not give up until the outcome of the war in France had virtually been decided. She did show the way, however, and on

14 The Sun and New York Herald.

ethnic grounds she had strong claims to some portion of Thrace, and a denial of her rights would have left open the Balkan sore from which so much ill had come to Europe. Bulgaria had a heavy price to pay, in any case. She was to reduce her army to 20,000 men, surrender her warships and submarines, recognize the independence of Jugo-Slavia, cede western Thrace to the Allies for future determination, compensate Serbia for coal taken from her, modify her frontier at four points in favor of Serbia, and pay $450,000,000 in gold as reparation for damages, the payments to be extended over some thirty years.

VII

THE PROLONGED CONTROVERSY IN AMERICA OVER THE TREATY WITH GERMANY-THE PROPOSED ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE-WILSON'S AND PERSHING'S GREAT WELCOMES HOME-FAILURE OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE TO RATIFY THE TREATY

AS

February, 1919-May 27, 1920

S IN December, 1918, there had been severe, and even acrimonious, criticism of the President for going to Paris as head of the American delegation-this, however, had died quietly away within a few weeks after he sailed, influenced in part, no doubt, by his wonderful reception and the series of honors conferred upon him in London, Paris, Rome, Milan, and Turin-so in February, 1919, criticism flared up, and this time more severe than ever. The League of Nations covenant had then been adopted by the Conference in Paris and President Wilson had come home bringing it with him. Leaders in criticism in the United States Senate were Senators Lodge, Knox, Johnson, Poindexter, and Borah. The President, in spite of it, had cabled inviting these and other Senators to dine with him at the White House as soon as he arrived, the invitation being accepted by all except Senator Borah, who, in speeches before the President's arrival and afterward, in several parts of the country, took vigorous and impassioned ground against the League. Within a few days after the President's dinner, Senator Lodge and others spoke in the Senate against the League covenant, as adopted by the Conference, and Senator Knox was quoted as saying he would "strike out the enacting clause." The proposed arrangement, said Senator Knox, "would divide the world into two great armed camps," it would "breed wars," and it "would leave us bound and helpless." Senator Lodge, who was soon to be the majority leader in the Senate, condemned the League as a movement away from George Washington "toward the other end of the line at which stands the sinister figure of Trotzky, the champion of internationalism." Senator Lodge criticized also the phraseology of the covenant and said there was serious danger that the nations signing it "would quarrel about the meaning of the various articles before a twelve-month had passed."

The criticism as summed up in the first few weeks, seemed to call mainly for three modifications in the League covenant-first, guaran

ties for the perpetuity of the Monroe Doctrine; second, declarations that would give the United States exclusive control over its own internal and domestic affairs; third, such limitations as would make it possible for the United States to withdraw from the League, in the event of this being necessary or desirable. Republican Senators to the number of thirty-seven, about this time, signed a roundrobin in which they declared that the League covenant in the form in which it then stood should not be adopted by the United States, and called upon the Conference to conclude peace with Germany before giving further consideration to the League. This was thought to threaten final defeat of the League, since a two-thirds vote of the Senate was necessary for its ratification. Former President Taft, who soon afterward had been active in support of a League, appeared at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York on the platform with President Wilson, where besides giving his support to the League, he welcomed such constructive criticism as Senator Lodge and others had to offer. President Wilson sailed for France again the next day, and soon after arriving secured from the Conference certain modifications of the covenant that had been suggested in America, including the exemption of the Monroe Doctrine from being affected by it. It was afterward

pointed out by The Quarterly Review of London that, so far as it was aware, the Monroe Doctrine had never before been recognized by any power except the United States, and that as recognition of it had now been obtained in the Treaty of Peace "the control of the United States over the new world was thereby assured."

While President Wilson had won in Paris a victory through the successful adoption of the League, his Republican opponents had now scored a success in the changes made. The President had been checked, but so had the embarrassing tactics of Senators been defeated. Notable at this time-indeed it had been notable from the beginning of the discussion of a League of Nations and so continued until the treaty was signed-was the active support of the League given in speeches in many parts of the country by former President