PARIS 1919 by Margaret MacMillan

principle.” House had already done this during the armistice discussions. 6
    The Great War had begun with a series of mistakes and it ended in confusion. The Allies (and let us include their Associate the United States in the term) were not expecting victory when it came. Austria-Hungary was visibly collapsing in the summer of 1918, but Germany still looked strong. Allied leaders planned for at least another year of war. By the end of October, however, Germany’s allies were falling away and suing for armistices, the German army was streaming back toward its own borders and Germany itself was shaking with revolutionary outbursts. The armistice with Germany, the most important and ultimately the most controversial of all, was made in a three-cornered negotiation between the new German government in Berlin, the Allied Supreme War Council in Paris and Wilson in Washington. House, as Wilson’s personal representative, was the key link among them. The Germans, calculating that their best chance for moderate peace terms was to throw themselves on Wilson’s mercy, asked for an armistice based on the Fourteen Points. Wilson, who was eager to push his somewhat reluctant European allies to accept his principles, agreed in a series of public notes.
    The Europeans found this irritating. Furthermore, they had never been prepared to accept the Fourteen Points without modification. The French wanted to make sure that they received compensation for the enormous damage done to their country by the German invasion. The British could not agree to the point about freedom of the seas, for that would prevent them from using the naval blockade as a weapon against their enemies. In a final series of discussions in Paris, House agreed to the Allied reservations, and so the Fourteen Points were modified to allow for what later came to be called reparations from Germany and for discussions on freedom of the seas at the Peace Conference itself. In addition, the military terms of the armistice, which called for not just the evacuation of French and Belgian territory but also the withdrawal of German troops from the western edge of Germany itself, went a long way toward disarming Germany, something the French devoutly wished. 7
    The way the armistice was made left much room for later recrimination. The Germans were able to say that they had only accepted it on the basis of the original Fourteen Points and that the subsequent peace terms were therefore largely illegitimate. And Wilson and his supporters were able to blame the wily Europeans for diluting the pure intentions of the new diplomacy.
    When House and Wilson had their first conversation in Paris on the afternoon of December 14, 1918, they were already suspicious of European intentions. Although the Peace Conference was not to start officially for another few weeks, the maneuvering had begun. Clemenceau had already suggested to the British that they come up with a general agreement on the peace terms, and the Europeans, including the Italians, had met in London at the beginning of the month. Wisely, Clemenceau took out insurance. He visited House on his sickbed to assure him that the London meetings had no importance whatsoever. He himself was only going over because it might help Lloyd George in his forthcoming general election. As it turned out, between disagreements over Italy’s territorial demands in the Adriatic and squabbling between Britain and France over the disposition of the Ottoman empire, the meetings failed to produce a common European approach. All three European powers also hesitated, not wishing to give Wilson the impression that they were trying to settle things before he arrived. 8
    House, who shared Wilson’s view that the United States was going to be the arbiter of the peace, believed, without much evidence, that Clemenceau was likely to be more reasonable than Lloyd George. Conveniently, Wilson met Clemenceau first. The wily old statesman listened