Paris Peace Conference 180.03401/19

Notes of a Meeting held at President Wilson’s House in the Place des Etats Unis, Paris, on Monday, May 19th, 1919, at 4 p.m.

[Extracts]

C.F.19

  • Present.—United States of America. President Wilson.—British Empire. Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd George, M.P.—France. M. Clemenceau.—Italy. M. Sonnino.
Count Aldrovandi Secretaries
Sir Maurice Hankey, K.C.B.
Prof. P. J. Mantoux. Interpreter

. . . . . . .

Russia

7. President Wilson said that he had ordered an enquiry to be sent to Koltchak, direct from the State Department, asking him to specify his programme and policy.77 He said he had also received information from M. Kerenski. He would not regard this as a good source of information unless it happened to tally with information he had received elsewhere. Kerenski and his friends hoped that there would be no recognition of Koltchak or anyone else as representative of all the Russias and that as a condition of further assistance, certain agreements should be exacted from all the parties opposed to the Bolshevists, by which they would pledge themselves to a certain progressive policy. They should be informed that a departure from this would cause them to lose the support of the Allied and Associated Powers. This seemed to provide the rudiments of a policy.

Mr. Lloyd George agreed that it was important to impose conditions.

President Wilson said that these Russian groups could be broken down at any time by our failure to support them.

Mr. Lloyd George said he was amazed at the amount of material that had been supplied. They had received something like £50.000,000 of armaments and munitions.

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  1. See telegram to the Ambassador in Japan, May 15, 6 p.m., p. 349.