Parliament respectively "an engagement subject to the League of Nations to go immediately to the assistance of France in the case of an unprovoked attack by Germany." In spite of the saving clause "subject to the League of Nations” the agreement is inevitably damaging to the prestige of the League, and its inherent dangers were illustrated by the demand immediately voiced in various quarters in France that both Italy and Belgium should be brought into the new alliance. So hard does the Balance of Power doctrine die.

There was still one more contest to come over the Rhine territory. Under the Treaty the Allies took power to occupy the left bank of the river for fifteen years as guarantee of the payment of the indemnity, and to extend that period at will in the event of Germany's failure to discharge her obligations. The question of the administration of that area during occupation had to be settled. Marshal Foch stood out for a fully developed military régime, and a singularly uncompromising French memorandum was drawn up in defence of that thesis. General Tasker Bliss, the military member of the American Peace Delegation, who had just returned to Paris from the Rhine, immediately replied with an equally strong memorandum urging the establishment of a supreme civil control. This broadly represented the British view also. The question was referred to a committee, on which Lord Robert Cecil was the British member and Mr. J. W. Davis, the American Ambassador in London, represented the

United States. Marshal Foch stated his case in person, but the committee reported against him and the Council of Four adopted its recommendations, which provided for the administration of the occupied area by a Supreme Rhineland Commission of five civilian members, with whom final executive authority would rest. That solution was naturally not popular in French military circles and there was more than a suspicion that Dr. Dorten's attempt to form a semi-independent Rhineland Republic a month or so later had the unofficial backing of various French officers as well as of various French clericals.

To the list of territorial controversies of the first order must be added the question of the boundaries of Poland, to which reference has already been made. That problem produced a slight change of orientation among members of the Council of Four. As a rule where German interests were concerned M. Clemenceau might be described as standing well to the right, President Wilson well to the left, and Mr. Lloyd George somewhere between the two. On Poland the relationships shifted. France's interest in that country has already been indicated. Mr. Wilson too had his reasons for sympathy with the Poles. There is a large Polish population in the United States, and one of the Fourteen Points was devoted exclusively to the vindication of Poland's claims. He appeared quite content to accept the report of the Polish Commission, so delimiting the "corridor" to Dantzig as to include two mil

lion Germans in Poland, as well as cutting off East Prussia from geographical connection with Germany altogether. It was Mr. Lloyd George who fought that battle and won it. No ideal solution was possible. The severance of East Prussia was the inevitable result of the connection of Poland with the sea. All that could be doneand that was done was to secure for Germany free transit rights over the strip of Polish territory that separated West Prussia from East. Round Dantzig a fierce controversy centred. Should the predestined port of Poland remain German? Should a town 95 per cent. German be handed over to Poles? Statistics hurtled through the air. The Poles were on the spot to state their case in person, the Germans, of course, were not, but there were plenty of devotees of self-determination to challenge the Polish arguments. In the end Mr. Lloyd George got his way over the corridor, and Dantzig was made nominally a free city, though that concession was hedged about with so many qualifications as to be hardly worth the breath expended in arguing for it.

All round the Polish frontier there was controversy, as to Lithuania, as to the Ukraine, as to the notorious Teschen, where coal mines and a railway were in dispute. The Teschen discussions trailed on till the middle of September, when it was decided to cut the knot by ordering a plebiscite of the inhabitants. Polish and Czecho-Slovak propagandists had argued their claims

threadbare for six months, and armed affrays between soldiers of the two nations in Teschen itself had been numerous. A plebiscite was also decided on in Upper Silesia, largely on the initiative of Mr. Lloyd George, who insisted that the Polish claims to that area should be submitted to the decision of the inhabitants.

The minor changes in the map are too numerous to trace, but there was one to which a peculiar, if adventitious, interest attached. There was no more striking figure in Paris at a certain stage of the Conference than the Emir Feisal, son of the King of the Hedjaz. I picture him as I saw him one afternoon pacing up and down the great lounge of the Hotel Majestic in company with his inseparable attaché, Col. Lawrence, the remarkable young Oxford don, who, turning to account the knowledge of Arabic he had acquired in exploring for manuscripts, had succeeded in bringing the ruler of the Hedjaz and all the troops he controlled into the war on the British side against the Turks. Col. Lawrence is a few years over thirty and looks less. He stands about five feet six. The Emir Feisal must be a good six inches taller and his remarkable golden headdress, crowning a figure already made notable by the rich black beard and the flowing robe, heightened still further the contrast between the two companions. What the Emir wanted at Paris was the recognition of the Hedjaz. He got it, and signed the Treaty at Versailles as the representative of an independent monarch. That had

already been conceded by a secret agreement of 1916, between Great Britain, Russia and France, which gave Great Britain Mesopotamia and France Syria. As to Mesopotamia no question arose, but the disposition of Syria was the subject of endless discussion at the Conference. It was alleged that the inhabitants did not desire the establishment of a French régime. The despatch of a commission of enquiry was decided on, then cancelled, then revived, then cancelled again, till no one knew at any moment whether the latest resolve was that it should go or not go. In the end the appointed British representatives, Sir Henry Macmahon and Dr. D. G. Hogarth, abandoned their proposed journey. The French representatives were never appointed and the Americans, Mr. Charles R. Crane and President King, of Oberlin University, went out alone. The assignation of the Syrian mandate to France was finally agreed to after consultation with Lord Allenby after his return from Palestine and Egypt in September.

The future of Asia Minor, where Greece and Italy had taken the precaution of pegging out their claims by the landing of troops at Smyrna and Adalia respectively, was left in abeyance pending the decision of America as to the acceptance of a mandate for the whole or any part of that section of the former Turkish Empire.

By the end of it all settled frontiers, which the League of Nations undertakes by Article X. of the Covenant to defend against external ag