Paris Peace Conf. 184.00101/144½
Minutes of Meeting Between the Commissioners and Technical Experts, American Commission to Negotiate Peace, Hotel Crillon, Paris, August 27, 1919, 2 p.m.
- Present:
- Mr. Polk
- Mr. White
- General Bliss
- Admiral Knapp
- Colonel Grant
- Major Tyler
- Mr. Woolsey
- Dr. Lord
- Mr. Harrison
- Mr. A. W. Dulles
- Capt. Chapin
- Capt. Gordon
- Mr. Shaw
- Mr. Russell
Mr. Polk: Have you anything, Admiral?
Admiral Knapp: No, everything is fairly clear.
Mr. Polk: Your decks are clear, are they?
Admiral Knapp: The distribution of ships seems to be in the background. The aircraft matter is pretty well settled now.
Mr. Polk: That ship question has not put its head up at all recently, has it?
Admiral Knapp: No, it really hasn’t. I don’t know what the result will be. I don’t know any basis of distribution. If we could only persuade our French friends to have a change of heart.
Mr. Polk: They have put out quite a bit of propaganda. They say they had no people to work at shipbuilding during the war; that all their men were in the army; therefore the United States and Great Britain, because they were able to have men in their shipyards, were able to build ships, while the French were not able to do so.
Admiral Knapp: That fortunately, does not rest on my devoted head.
Mr. Polk: I have expected Clemenceau to bring it up, but he hasn’t mentioned it. I know he and Balfour had it up.
Admiral Knapp: I might possibly mention some of those dispatches about depredations that have taken place in the Italian zone down there, the way they have treated the Yugo-Slavs, and all that. The Fiume question has been settled, hasn’t it?
Mr. Polk: Yes, Tittoni accepted everything.
Admiral Knapp: He couldn’t do anything else, considering the way that was arrived at.
Mr. Polk: Have you anything further?
Admiral Knapp: No, sir, I don’t think I have anything further.
Mr. Polk: Have you anything, Prof. Coolidge?
Prof. Coolidge: No, sir, I haven’t got anything.
Mr. Polk: Mr. Woolsey?
Mr. Woolsey: No.
Mr. Polk: Dr. Lord?
Dr. Lord: A report has just been sent in on Teschen to the Supreme Council, and our report on Eastern Galicia has also gone in now, I understand.
Mr. Polk: Is that Galician report apt to make trouble? The Teschen report is.
Dr. Lord: The Teschen report is a unanimous report by the Commission. It will doubtless arouse a considerable amount of criticism from the Czechs, and, to a less extent, from the Poles. The Galician [Page 397] report is not unanimous, with regard to three of the articles of the proposed treaty, where the British have made minority proposals. I suppose that that may lead to some discussion. And then I understand that the Polish Delegation has sent in a memorandum to the Council requesting, or demanding, a change with regard to one of the most cardinal features of the treaty, namely, the one which provides that some time in the future there must be a plebiscite or some other kind of consultation of the inhabitants of Eastern Galicia.
Mr. Polk: Have you anything new? (Addressing Mr. Harrison)
Mr. Harrison: No, sir.
Mr. Polk: Have you anything, Major?
Major Tyler: No, sir.
Colonel Grant: I think it would be advisable for the Supreme Council, at its meetings, to go over the previous day’s resolutions and decide if they are correct or not. As to the proceedings at the present time, it is a little bit difficult to tell which side of the hill you stop on.
Mr. Polk: This morning the Council didn’t know what they decided day before yesterday.
Colonel Grant: But it wouldn’t take very long to go over this and settle the question immediately, because the work of the other commissions is dependent upon the exact wording of the resolutions.
Mr. Polk: We will do that tomorrow.
Capt. Chapin: It might be well to get the British representative to agree not to finally print the minutes until they have been reviewed at the next meeting. Have the carbon copies that are circulated sufficient for the 24 hours intervening.
Mr. Polk: Do they print them?
Capt. Chapin: They run them off and then they Roneo them. And sometimes they are not decided; they say, “we will make that definite tomorrow morning”. In the meantime somebody at the British asks for a copy at once, and then, they run them off, and then it is a question of getting out a corrigendum. If they wait 24 hours until they are approved at the next meeting it would make more accurate and better looking minutes.
Mr. Polk: When do you think we are going to get through with this Austrian Treaty?
Mr. Woolsey: It will require at least two more sessions of the Supreme Council.
Mr. Polk: Isn’t it possible to eliminate some of those questions?
Mr. Woolsey: There are two things that remain. One is the examination of the covering note; that will have to be gone over carefully. The other thing is the point I want to make as to whether these reports of the various commissions have been regarded as a sufficient interpretation. I think it is very important to us. The treaty will have to go to the Senate. We will be bound. And perhaps [Page 398] these other countries, if they do not understand that we are bound will think we do not understand that anybody is bound, and that they are not bound. Those are the only two points.
Mr. Polk: Are the British or French raising the question? Has that been raised with them?
Mr. Woolsey: Yes. They don’t know what to think about it. They have expressed no opinion, although it has been raised quite a few times. They all shake their heads and claim they do not know.
Mr. Polk: It is only a question now of the way we are going to consider Austria—that is the only question now—whether as a new state.
Mr. Woolsey: Yes, that will come up in the covering letter.
Mr. Polk: Only in the covering letter—
Mr. Woolsey: That is a point in the covering letter; I have raised it as a point. It will come up in connection with the covering letter. There is a question there whether the clause in the preamble of the Treaty shall stand or be removed. It now reads: “Austria is recognized as a new and independent state under the name of the Republic of Austria”, and the phrase, “as a new and independent state” seems to me to be fraught with embarrassments. I don’t think it adds anything to the Treaty; I think it is quite gratuitous; I think it is contrary to the theory of the Treaty. I think it might give Austria a handle to try to absolve herself from some things. My suggestion would be to leave out the clause: “as a new and independent state”, or leave the whole sentence out. Up above here we describe Austria; we call her the Republic of Austria.
Mr. White: I think that is sound.
The meeting adjourned at 2:30 p.m.