Paris Peace Conf. 180.03401/22½
CF–22A
Notes of a Meeting Held at President Wilson’s House in the Place des
Etats-Unis, Paris, on Wednesday, May 21, 1919, at 6:15 p.m.
Paris, May 21, 1919, 6:15 p.m.
- Present
- United States of America
- British Empire
- The Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd George, M. P.
- France
- M. Clemenceau.
- Secretary—Sir Maurice
Hankey, K. C. B.
- Interpreter—Professor P. J.
Mantoux.
President Wilson read the draft of a reply to
the German Note on the Economic Effect of the Treaty of Peace which had
been prepared at the request of the Council by Lord Curzon: (Appendix
I.)
1. Reply to the German Note on the Economic Effect of
the Treaty of Peace Subject to a few alterations in detail,
the Note was approved.
Sir Maurice Hankey was instructed to forward it to the Secretary-General
for translation into French for the signature of M. Clemenceau.
It was agreed that the letter should be published after it had been
signed and despatched.1
2. Verbal Discussions with the Germans
President Wilson said he would like to
intimate to the Germans that the Experts of the Allied and Associated
Powers were now ready to discuss with their Experts in regard to
Financial and Economic Conditions.
M. Clemenceau thought it would weaken the
Allied and Associated Powers.
President Wilson said that his object was to
demonstrate to Europe that nothing had been left undone which might have
induced the Germans to have signed. If they did not sign it would
involve sending troops into the heart of Germany and their retention
there for a long period. Germany could not pay the costs of this
occupation which would pile up the expenses to people who were already
protesting against the burden of occupation. People would ask if there
was anything reasonable left undone which might have averted this. There
would be no loss of dignity by carrying out this plan. The experts of
the Allied and Associated Powers would merely explain the meaning of
some parts of the Treaty of Peace which, in his view, the Germans
[Page 801]
had failed to understand. If
our Experts could show that no heavier burden had been laid on the
German people than justice required, it might make it easier for the
German Delegates to explain to their own people.
M. Clemenceau thought that this would serve the
objects of the Germans. He agreed that they would probably leave without
signing, but when troops began to move, they would sign soon enough.
They wanted some excuse with their own people to make them sign.
Mr. Lloyd George thought that sufficient excuse
would be given if some concession could be gained. He had nothing
particular in mind but there might be some concession which did not
matter very much which could be made. The question would not be decided
until the German answer to our proposals was available. He had in his
mind that they would make proposals perhaps about coal.
M. Clemenceau said we had a very strong answer
on this. He had seen some extraordinary effective figures of M.
Loucheur’s.
Mr. Lloyd George thought they might also make
proposals about restoration. He thought before deciding this question,
it would be better to await the German reply and to keep an open mind on
the subject.
President Wilson said that the letter which had
just been considered gave a conclusive reply to the German letter but
provided no ray of hope. It merely said that the Treaty was right and
nothing more. He had understood that the experts who had discussed with
the German Financial Experts at Villette found Herr Melchior a very
sensible man. Melchior was now one of the German Delegates, and he was a
representative of the kind of people in Germany who wanted to get their
industries going again, and he wanted to avoid the chaos and
confiscations of property and looting which had occurred elsewhere.
These people wanted to get their country started again, and they would
listen to what our experts had to say. The United States Experts had,
all along, said that the present scheme of reparation would not yield
much. This was Mr. Norman Davis’ view, and Mr. Keynes, the British
expert, shared it. He himself wanted the Allies to get reparation. He
feared they would get very little. If it could be shown to Melchior that
the Reparation Commission was allowed to consider the condition of
Germany and to adjust the arrangements accordingly from time to time, it
might enable him to persuade the German people.
M. Clemenceau said that President Wilson was
right, but he did not want to be placed in the position of a man who was
begging a favour. He preferred Mr. Lloyd George’s idea, of waiting until
the German comprehensive reply was received. This would be our “mor-ceau
de resistance”.
[Page 802]
President Wilson said he was afraid ten years
hence we should find that nothing had been got out of the Treaty of
Peace, and this would cause a reaction in Germany’s favour.
3. Prisoners of War: The Reply to Brockdorff-Rantzau’s
letter
M. Clemenceau informed his colleagues that he
had postponed signing the reply to Brockdorff-Rantzau’s letter on the
subject of Prisoners of War1a because he wished to attach to it an
admirable report he had received showing the equipment of German
Prisoners of War. He hoped to have this on the following day.
4. Telegram to General Pilsudski The attached
telegram to General Pilsudski, was approved. (Appendix II.)
(Sir Maurice Hankey was instructed to forward it to the Secretary-General
with instructions to translate it into French; to despatch it to General
Pilsudski; and to arrange for a copy to be to General sent to the French
Liaison Officer, or any other Officer on the Staff of General Haller,
for the information of General Haller.)
Villa Majestic, Paris, 21 May, 1919.
Appendix I to CF–22A
Suggested Reply to German Note on the
Economic Effect of the Peace Treaty
M.166
Redraft by Lord Curzon
1. The Allied Powers have received and have given careful attention
to the report of the Commission appointed by the German Government
to examine the economic conditions of the Treaty of Peace.2
This Report appears to them to contain a very inadequate presentation
of the facts of the case, to be marked in parts by great
exaggeration, and to ignore the fundamental considerations arising
both out of the incidence and the results of the war, which explain
and justify the terms that it is sought to impose.
2. The German Note opens with the statement that the industrial
resources of Germany were inadequate before the war for the
nourishment of a population of 67 millions, and it argues as though
this were the total for which with diminished resources she will
still be called upon to provide. This is not the case. The total
population of Germany will be reduced by not less than six million
persons in the non-German territories which it is proposed to
transfer. It is the needs of this smaller aggregate that we are
called upon to consider.
[Page 803]
3. Complaint is made in the German Note that Germany is required to
surrender her merchant tonnage, existing or in course of
construction, and that a prior claim is made upon her shipbuilding
capacity for a limited term of years. No mention, however, is made
of the fact that a considerable portion of the smaller tonnage of
Germany is left to her unimpaired; and it seems to have entirely
escaped the notice of her spokesmen that the sacrifice of her larger
shipping is the inevitable and necessary penalty imposed upon her
for the ruthless campaign which, in defiance of all law and
precedent, she waged during the last two years of the war upon the
mercantile shipping of the world. As a partial offset against the
12¾ million tons of shipping sunk, it is proposed to transfer 4
million tons of German shipping. In other words, the shipping which
it is proposed to take from Germany constitutes less than one-third
of that which was thus wantonly destroyed. The universal shortage of
merchant shipping is the result, not of the terms of peace, but of
the action of Germany, and no surprise can reasonably be felt if she
is called upon to bear her share—and it is a very moderate share—of
a loss for which her own criminal deeds have been responsible.
4. Great stress is laid upon the proposal that on the Eastern side
Germany shall be deprived of the Regions specially concentrated to
the production of wheat and potatoes. This is true. But the Note
fails altogether to observe that there is nothing in the Peace
Treaty to prevent either the continued production of these
commodities in the areas in question, or their importation into
Germany. On the contrary the free admission of the products of the
Eastern districts is provided for during a period of five years.
Moreover, it is fortunate for Germany that these Regions have lost
none of their productivity owing to the ravages of war. They have
escaped the shocking fate which was dealt out by the German armies
to the corresponding territories in Belgium and France on the West,
and Poland, Russia, Roumania and Serbia in the East. There appears
to be no reason why their produce should not continue to find a
market on German soil.
5. Stress is laid upon the proposed restriction in the import of
Phosphates. It is, however, forgotten, that Germany has never
produced but has always imported the Phosphates of which she stands
in need. Nor is there anything in the terms of peace which will
prevent or hinder the importation of phosphates into Germany in the
future. Other countries, which do not produce phosphates, are also
compelled to import them in common with many other products from the
outside; and the only difference in the two situations will arise
from the relative degree of wealth or impoverishment in the
countries concerned.
[Page 804]
6. The German Note makes special complaint of the deprivation of
coal, and asserts that nearly one-third of the production of the
existing German coal mines will be lost. But it omits to notice that
one-fourth of the pre-war consumption of German coal was in the
territories which it is now proposed to transfer. Further it fails
to take into account the production of Lignite, 80 million tons of
which were produced annually in Germany before the war, and none of
which is derived from the transferred territories. Neither is any
reference made to the fact that the output of coal in the
non-transferred districts was rapidly increasing before the war, and
that there is no reason to doubt that under proper management there
will be a continuing increase in the future.
7. But should not the coal situation be viewed from a different and
wider standpoint? It cannot be forgotten that among the most wanton
acts of devastation perpetrated by the German armies during the war
was the almost complete destruction by her of the coal supplies of
Northern France. An entire industry was obliterated with a
calculation and a savagery which it will take many years to repair.
The result has been a grave and prolonged shortage of coal in
Western Europe. There can be no reason in equity why the effect of
this shortage should be borne exclusively by the Allied nations who
were its victims, or why Germany who deliberately made herself
responsible for the deficiency should not to the full limit of her
capacity make it good.
8. Stress is also laid upon the hardships alleged to be inflicted
upon Germany by the necessity of importing in future iron ores and
zinc. It is not understood why Germany should be supposed to suffer
from conditions to which other countries contentedly submit. It
would appear to be a fundamental fallacy that the political control
of a country is essential in order to procure a reasonable share of
its products. Such a proposal finds no foundation in economic law or
in history.
9. The Allied Powers cannot accept the speculative estimate presented
to them in the German Note of the future conditions of German
industry as a whole. This estimate appears to them to be
characterised and vitiated by palpable exaggerations. No note is
taken of the fact that the economic disaster produced by the war is
widespread, and, indeed, universal. Every country is called upon to
suffer. There is no reason why Germany, which was responsible for
the war, should not suffer also. She must for this reason realise
that her economic, in common with her political and military
existence, must be conducted henceforward on a reduced and lower
plane. The German note tabulates and aggravates every contemplated
deprivation of material, and endeavours to paint a picture of
unrelieved gloom. But
[Page 805]
it
fails, as already mentioned, to make any allowance for the fact that
the present population of Germany will be diminished by 6,000,000
and that there will consequently be that less number of people to
provide for, to feed and to clothe.
10. Similarly, as regards the population of the future, no reliance
can be placed on the data which are contained in the German Note. On
the one hand, it is sought to prove that emigration from Germany
will be necessary, but that few countries will receive the intending
emigrants. On the other hand, it is sought to show that there will
be a flood of Germans returning [to] their native land to live under
the conditions which have already been described as intolerable. It
would be unwise to attach too much weight to either speculation.
11. Finally, the German Note rashly asserts that the Peace Conditions
will “logically bring about the destruction of several millions of
persons in Germany”, in addition to those who have perished in the
war or who are alleged to have lost their lives in consequence of
the blockade. Against the war losses of Germany might very fairly be
placed the far greater losses which her initiative and conduct of
the war have inflicted upon the Allied countries, and which have
left an ineffaceable mark upon the manhood of Europe. On the other
hand, the figures and the losses alleged to have been caused by the
blockade are purely hypothetical. The German estimate of future
losses, which, though it is described as logical, appears to be no
less fantastic, could be accepted only if the premises upon which it
is presumed to rest are accepted also. But they are entirely
fallacious. There is not the slightest reason to believe that a
population is destined to be permanently disabled because it will be
called upon in future to trade across its frontiers instead of
producing what it requires from within. A country can both become
and can continue to be a great manufacturing country without
producing the raw materials of its main industries. Such is the
case, for instance, with Great Britain, which imports at least
one-half of her food supplies and the great preponderance of her raw
materials from abroad. There is no reason whatever why Germany under
the new conditions should not build up for herself a position both
of stability and prosperity in the European world. Her territories
have suffered less than those of any other Continental belligerent
state during the war. Indeed, so far as pillage or devastation is
concerned, they have not suffered at all. Their remaining and
untouched resources, supplemented by the volume of import trade,
should be adequate for recovery and development on a modest but
sufficient scale.
12. The German reply also ignores the immense relief that will be
caused to her people in the struggle for recovery by the enforced
reduction of her military armaments in future. Hundreds of thousands
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of her inhabitants,
who have hitherto been engaged either in training for armies or in
producing instruments of destruction, will henceforward be available
for peaceful avocations and for increasing the industrial
productiveness of the nation. For no boon should Germany be more
grateful.
13. But the first condition of any such recuperation would appear to
be that Germany should recognise the facts of the present state of
the world, which she has been mainly instrumental in creating, and
realise that she cannot escape unscathed. The share which she is
being called upon to bear of the enormous calamity that has befallen
the world has been apportioned by the victorious Powers, not to her
deserts, but solely to her ability to bear it. All the nations of
Europe are now bearing burdens and suffering from losses which are
almost more than they can carry. These burdens and losses have been
forced upon them by the aggression of Germany. It is right that
Germany, which was responsible for the origin of these calamities,
should make them good to the utmost of her capacity. Her hardships
will arise not from the conditions of peace, but from the acts of
those who provoked and prolonged the war. Those who were responsible
for the war cannot escape its just consequences.
Villa
Majestic, Paris
, May
21, 1919.
Appendix II to CF–22A
Telegram From the President of the
Peace Conference to General Pilsudski, Warsaw
(Approved by the Council of the Principal Allied and
Associated Powers on 21st May, 1919)
The Council of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers have heard
rumours from several sources to the effect that troops of General
Haller’s Army have recently taken part in operations against the
Ukrainian forces in Eastern Galicia, in the region of Belz or
elsewhere.
The Council would be glad to receive early information from the
Polish Government with regard to these reports, which the Council is
reluctant to believe, since definite engagements were undertaken by
General Haller not to take part in the operations against the
Ukrainians.
