Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, The Paris Peace Conference, 1919, Volume XI

Paris Peace Conf. 184.00101/137

Minutes of Meeting of Commissioners and Technical Advisers of American Commission to Negotiate Peace, Hotel Crillon, August 13, 1919, 2 p.m.

August 13, 1919, 2 p.m.

• Present:
  • Mr. White
  • General Bliss
  • Admiral Knapp
  • Colonel Grant
  • Dr. Lord
  • Capt. Hornbeck
  • Mr. Nielsen
  • Prof. Coolidge
  • Mr. Buckler
  • Capt. Chapin
  • Mr. Harrison
  • Mr. Shaw
  • Mr. A. W. Dulles
  • Lt. Condon
  • Mr. Osborne
  • Mr. Russell

Mr. White: Col. Grant, have you any observations?

Colonel Grant: Nothing whatsoever.

Mr. White: Prof. Coolidge?

Prof. Coolidge: The Central Territorial Committee is struggling with one or two questions. It has the Austrian one in hand; I think we will come to an agreement this afternoon. There will be a few changes—I am speaking of the territorial side of the Austrian question—and it will then be ready to go to the Co-ordinating Commission, and there seems to be some uncertainty as to what the Co-ordinating Commission is or is not to do: whether it is merely to be occupied with textual revision, or whether it is to have an opinion of its own.

Mr. White: We were to settle that important question.

Prof. Coolidge: I don’t know whether they have had a meeting. Mr. Woolsey represents us. He yesterday raised the question whether our recommendations were final before going to the Supreme Council, or whether the Co-ordinating Commission might change them.

Mr. White: Well, is it for us to pass on it?

Prof. Coolidge: No, I don’t think so.

Mr. Nielsen: I heard Monday that the reply to the Austrians in regard to the nationality clauses might be delayed somewhat. The Committee on Political Clauses has considered that subject. It has not framed its reply, principally because there was a hitch in regard to the Drafting Committee.

Mr. White: Dr. Lord?

Dr. Lord: The Polish Commission has had for some time three problems on its hands, none of which it seems to get finished. The East Galician question is almost ready for report; in accordance with instructions from the Supreme Council we have drafted a kind of treaty containing the outlines of the constitution for Eastern Galicia as an autonomous province of Poland. That draft is in the hands of the Redaction Committee now, which is going to confer with us this afternoon about it.

Mr. White: What is the question, in a general way?

Dr. Lord: That Eastern Galicia should be under the sovereignty of Poland, provisionally, until a consultation of the population some time in the future, the date of which we are precluded from making any recommendations about. That during this provisional regime the country should have the most complete guarantee for the racial, linguistic and religious rights of the different populations there, and as wide a measure of local autonomy as seems practicable.

We are proposing a local diet, a local cabinet of ministers responsible to the diet, and an independent judiciary—on the whole, a kind of provincial autonomy.

On the other hand the Polish government will have control; they are represented by a governor who will have the veto on the diet. And in other ways we are trying to make Poland able to keep order in that rather turbulent and distracted country.

There is one difficulty. I hear that Mr. Paderewski is coming back in a day or so, and I understand that he is coming back to attack the whole arrangement, that is, in so far as it does apply to an eventual plebiscite. The Poles do not object to the autonomy, but they object to the uncertainty that they will feel from the fact that in ten or fifteen years nobody is going to know quite what is going to be the definitive status of this country.

Mr. White: Why must they wait so long?

Dr. Lord: Well, that is just the opinion.

Mr. White: What are the arguments now? That they cannot tell now what they want?

Dr. Lord: Partly that, and partly that the country has got to be pretty thoroughly reconstructed; that it would be a matter of ten years, probably, and it has suffered terribly from the war; it has been conquered four or five times, and there is a big work of reconstruction to be carried out there, and we think also that a big work of education should be carried out. The people are frightfully ignorant—the great majority illiterate, and it seems it would be only the part of wisdom to give them a certain time to acquire more education and maturity.

Mr. White: That seems only reasonable.

Dr. Lord: Then the other question. We have the Teschen question, which is sent back to us from the Supreme Council. That is up for discussion at present, and I hope that within about a week we shall have a recommendation for the Supreme Council.

Mr. White: Have you given up all hope of their coming to an agreement? Do you suppose they are more in the humor now of falling in with any arrangement made by the Supreme Council than they were before?

Dr. Lord: Both of them recognize that they cannot agree among themselves. Both of them want to have it settled, I think, by the Supreme Council, in order that neither government will assume responsibility for the concessions that each side will have to make.

And then our third question is about the Eastern Frontier of Poland, which is going to be a very difficult question. It is largely a question of policy there. I don’t known whether this is the proper place to raise it, although I should very much like to get instructions some day on that subject. It raises the question whether, pending the restoration of Russia, Poland should be left without any kind of frontier on the East, or whether she should receive some kind of provisional frontiers until there is a recognized government in Russia again, after which there will have to be an agreement between Poland and Russia, and very probably there will have to be a mediation by the League of Nations.

Mr. White: I should think that there should be some kind of a line.

Colonel Grant: I should think that would very much alleviate a great many of the difficulties that occur—the interference of the Germans there. There is constant action all along that front, not only in Poland, but in those other countries.

Mr. White: In that connection the representative of Bessarabia said he understood that Roumania was going to hold an election in Bessarabia for members, from Bessarabia, to the Roumanian parliament. He was very anxious that the Council should recognize that fact.

Mr. Buckler: Mr. Polk raised the same point, of the plebiscite that is going to be held in provinces that were formerly parts of Russia.

Mr. White: Only Bessarabia has a defined limit, and as I understand, in this proposed election to be held in old Russia, it is in a more or less undefined area—or is it defined?

Dr. Lord: Well, it is a continually growing election. It is in Vilna and Grodno. As their armies move forward they continue to hold elections.

Mr. White: Do you think it would be wise for the Conference to give notice to the Roumanians?

Prof. Coolidge: I don’t think it is wise for the Council to meddle in it one way and not the other. I don’t think they ought to meddle in the question until they know what they are going to do.

Mr. White: We have laid down the rule that we do not think that any of the territory that we formerly called Russian territory should be disposed of until we know what the Russian situation will be.

Prof. Coolidge: When was that laid down?

Mr. White: I think that was laid down by Mr. Lansing.

Mr. A. W. Dulles: There were certain exceptions in regard to Finland and Poland.

Prof. Coolidge: But Mr. Lansing spoke of the Polish plebiscite.

Mr. White: And Bratiano did not agree.

Prof. Coolidge: And Bratiano did not agree.

Dr. Lord: I think the nearest to a thoroughly official act is in the note of the Council of Four to Admiral Koltchak in which they make a distinction between Bessarabia and other parts of the former Russian Empire.²⁹ They expressly reserve the right of the Peace Conference here to settle the Bessarabian question. As for the frontier of Russia towards Poland and Finland, they ask only that Koltchak agree that in case those frontiers could not be settled by a voluntary agreement between the two parties, that Koltchak’s government should accept the collaboration, and some other phrase like “mediation” of the League of Nations. That seemed to contemplate an immediate settlement of the Bessarabian question by the Peace Conference.

Mr. White: It is terrible the way things are said to be going on in Bessarabia; if what is being done in Buda-Pesth is any criterion it is probably more or less true. Russian language prohibited, and anybody suspected of Russian proclivities deported.

Colonel Grant: Couldn’t that Polish frontier question be settled by recognizing a de facto frontier? That would to a certain extent, I think, settle the constant bickerings up there on frontiers for the moment, until the Russian frontier is solved by force of arms, or whatever way it is solved.

Mr. White: Would you exclude Bessarabia and Roumania?

Colonel Grant: I was not referring to the Bessarabian question, which, as Dr. Lord says, deserves a special settlement, for it is very much mixed up by the Roumanian situation at the present time. The proposition of [is?] the east frontier of Poland and the Baltic states.

Mr. White: I think it would be the sense of the meeting that something ought to be done along those lines.

Dr. Lord: The situation between the Poles and the Lithuanians is another reason why something should be done. There have been demarcations imposed on them several times, but still that can only stave off trouble. I think that unless there is a kind of a provisional fixing of a frontier, those two nations are going to get into serious fighting pretty soon.

Mr. White: Any observations? (Addressing Capt. Hornbeck)

Captain Hornbeck: No.

Mr. White: One of the press men told me just now that there had been two notes received from Bratiano, which are being decoded. I don’t know how true that is.

Mr. Buckler: You saw that telegram from Mr. Davis this morning?³⁰

Mr. White: Telling about the Armenians—yes, I saw that. Meanwhile we have heard nothing more about massacres having begun.

Mr. Buckler: There are three American Relief workers missing there, and nothing has been heard of them.

Mr. White: I think we have a very able mission; General Harbord and the men who are with him. Their presence should have a good moral effect. Have you any observations, Admiral?

Admiral Knapp: I have got a telegram from Admiral Bristol requesting funds for himself and his mission; he is on the Smyrna Commission. He was appointed by the President, and I should like to know what answer to make to him.

Mr. White: He certainly has not a monopoly on that kind of a request. I think we will have to put that up to the representative of the government.

Admiral Knapp: I will just answer him back—

Mr. White: I would wait till you have seen Mr. Polk.

Admiral Knapp: I have got quite a long report, which is in three parts, from Bristol. I think he has made it himself. My aide has run through it and has marked several places; I have not yet had time to read it myself. I might read some of the places which he has marked.

(Admiral Knapp thereupon read excerpts from Admiral Bristol’s report)

It is a long report and I have not had time to go over it yet. I have a spare copy, which I will give you. I think this might be valuable for General Harbord too.

There is one more thing I would like to ask: I would like to know the status of the President of the Georgian Republic, and the status of the Georgian Republic.

. . . . . . .

Admiral Knapp: They have not been recognized by any government then?

Dr. Lord: No.

Mr. White: Certainly not by ours.

(There was some further discussion concerning the Georgian Republic, the statement being made that the Georgian Republic had not been recognized by anybody.)

Meeting adjourned at 2:50 p.m.

29. See appendix I to CF–37, vol. vi, p. 73.
30. Apparently a reference to the telegram of August 12, 1919, 4 p.m., sent by the Ambassador in Great Britain to the Secretary of State and repeated to the Commission to Negotiate Peace as the Embassy’s No. 2766, Foreign Relations, 1919, vol. ii, p. 829.