Week 85

 

Somewhere between March 21^st and March 27^th 1919 (the explanatory addendum to the transcription of the meeting of the Foreign Ministers on the 27^th reads: "This Meeting was arranged at short notice at the beginning of a Meeting between President Wilson, Mr. Lloyd George, M. Clemenceau, and M. Orlando, held at 11.00 a.m. at President Wilson’s house at the Place des Etats-Unis" – Aldrovandi-Marescotti in his memoirs says that "it was established on the 24^th [of March]") a decision was made to reduce the number of personnel attending the large meetings of the Supreme Council, and especially to "split tables" at the Peace Conference. In the following years a few claimed that this choice had been inspired in no little part by the desire of the Prime Ministers to get rid of the Italian Foreign Minister Sidney Sonnino – we have given a few examples of his headbutting with the other delegates last week. This idea (albeit usually pushed forward somewhat halfheartedly) occurs both in those who regarded the Italian Minister as a true monkey wrench thrown into the Conference clockwork (and therefore interpret the choice as evidence of Sonnino's extreme inadequacy) and in those who saw in it an implicit recognition of Sonnino's strenuous efforts to defend the Italian rights and of the Allied duplicitous attitude. The actual explanation is most likely the official one: the desire to avoid the recurrent and disturbing leaks of information from the large gatherings of the Supreme Council. A problem which had occurred before and was raised explicitly during the session of March 21^st 1919.

Mr. Lloyd George said that he raised the following question with considerable disinclination. It would be in the recollection of the Conference that on Tuesday last a discussion took place on the subject of Poland. It was necessary that at these meetings the members should express themselves quite freely and quite clearly. He was therefore surprised on the following morning to find in the French papers not only a full report of the Committee’s finding illustrated by secret maps; but, in addition, a garbled account of what he himself had said in the Council. The account contained actual quotations of the words used by him between quotation marks. Had a verbatim report been given, he would not have objected so strongly. But the report gave a very wrong impression of what he had said, and the distortion permitted an opportunity for violent attacks against him. […] The Conference would recollect that President Wilson had on a previous occasion drawn the attention of the Council to a similar occurrence. The report then complained of had also been a very garbled version of what had actually taken place at the meeting. [...] That very afternoon General Bliss had told him that an American gentleman just returned from Berlin stated that the disclosures which were daily appearing in the papers in connection with the peace negotiations were causing the greatest harm in Germany. From what this witness had seen and heard in Germany, he felt convinced that if the whole peace terms, however stiff, were at once presented, they would be accepted. But the disclosure of one condition at a time had the effect of driving the Germans to desperation, especially as each new thing was published to the world with the suggestion that the Allies were not agreed among themselves. He wished to speak quite plainly, and to say that if similar disclosures were to be repeated, he would much prefer not to take any further part in the discussions, and to put off expressing his views until the final Conference took place. A perusal of the articles complained of would make it clear that someone who had been present in the room was responsible for the disclosure, and his colleagues would agree that it would be impossible to continue these discussions if such incidents were likely to recur. […] [Lloyd George accepted Clemenceau's reassurances and explanations about the French press] His chief point was that someone sitting in that room had deliberately given the information complained of to the press with a definite purpose. He fully agreed with M. Clemenceau that it was impossible to control the press, but it should be possible to prevent responsible officials from giving away such information, especially when the information so given was deliberately altered in order to make it the ground for a violent attack on one of the Allied countries. […]

Mr. Balfour invited attention to another aspect of the same case. The same leakage was taking place in regard to Commissions and Committees, with the result that the members who had expressed an opinion on any question were subsequently lectured by outside parties. […]

President Wilson said he could confirm Mr. Balfour’s statement, because he himself had first learnt of the decisions about to be reached by Commissions from outside parties against whom the decision was going to be given. In his opinion, every member of the Delegation should take steps to ensure that no one connected with his Delegation was to blame.

It soon became clear that, despite the increased security of the almost private meetings of the Four Greats, the Italian Prime Minister, who spoke a rather poor English, could not continue to rely on Clemenceau's translation from English to French. Around March 29^th therefore the member of the French delegation Paul Mantoux was added as interpreter – on April 19^th the British M. Hankey and the Italian L. Aldrovandi-Marescotti joined the group as well.

The Italian matters – explained A.-M. in his memoirs, focusing on what he calls the "week of Adriatic Passion" going from April 19^th to April 25^th – already briefly mentioned in a few official sessions, mostly one of February 18^th with the exposition of the Yugoslav point of view made by Vesnic and Trumbic, were retaken up by the Four on April 3^rd when Orlando was abruptly asked to expose the Italian point of view. The exposition and discussion between Orlando and Wilson lasted on that day from 11:30 to 13:00. […]

In the following days, private meetings took place, between Orlando and Lloyd George (April 8^th 1919) [on the same day, a list of "subjects for consideration" prepared by Hankey was submitted by Lloyd George to the Council, including "The Italian claims as regards the Tyrol, the Adriatic, including Dalmatia and Fiume" among the points, but with no further specification on the state of the discussion] and between Orlando and Wilson (April 11^th 1919). On April the 13^th , almost concluded the formulation of the peace conditions with Germany, Lloyd George, in agreement with Clemenceau, suggested their convocation for the 23^rd – Orlando expressed the Italian reservations on the matter, both vocally and in written form, observing that the Germans should not have be called as long as the Italian matters were yet to be settled.

On the 14^th a rather stormy private meeting took place between Orlando and Wilson. Wilson provided on the same day Orlando with a Memorandum exposing his considerations on the Italian question, a matter to which "more than to any one else he had dedicated his most committed and urgent thoughts"; with a suggestion or request to "submit it to the Italian Parliament".

Orlando, once examined the document, replied on the same day to Wilson that the proposals there exposed, to his own judgment and to that of his Italian colleagues […] "could not represent any basis of discussion" and that "the situation, posed in those terms, was hopeless". On the following day (April 15^th ), Orlando went on to discuss [the issue] with Colonel House […]

In the subsequent, more detailed narration of the meetings A.M. attended to, two elements were – according to the author – of "special interest".

1. Balfour's statement that Wilson had received a copy of the Treaty [of London]

A fact which is indeed difficult to reconcile with the ignorance of the contents of the Treaty professed by Wilson in various circumstances, as most observers had not failed to notice. Outside of the Treaty being almost common knowledge at the time (and the symbol of that "secret diplomacy" which Wilson had so fervently opposed), the American delegation had examined the issue of its validity at least since late 1918 – of course the Italians had not been able to submit the Treaty directly (they had introduced the issue somewhat indirectly with E. House) as they were prevented from disclosing it by the clause of secrecy, and they had furthermore no reason to expect a positive reply from the Americans, so that a discussion with the British and French for involving the US with the matter was entirely pointless.