CRACKS IN THE ALLIED SIDE

Endless Threat of Starvation or

Justice for the Dead.

The Ultimatum: Sign or the War Starts Anew.

Special to The Great War Project.

(10 May) The German response to the proposed peace treaty has grown to more than 20,000 words. It puts some cracks into the unanimity of the Allied powers.
According to historian Thomas Fleming, some now admit openly they agree with Berlin’s argument that it had signed a contract to make peace on the basis of President Wilson’s Fourteen Points and “the treaty did not come close to doing this.”

Formulating the Treaty.

Wilson’s press secretary tells him “the treaty is unworkable.”
Key figures in the American delegation, including Herbert Hoover, who is in charge of feeding the starving people of Europe, decide to ask Wilson to revise the treaty.

British Prime Minister David Lloyd George is now similarly changing his view of the treaty. It’s time for Wilson to make some changes himself, including setting a specific amount for German reparations. At the moment the draft treaty is not specific on that issue, leaving Germany to fear it could be an unending demand.

The Big Three.

Hoover expresses fears that the German economy would face the endless threat of both starvation and Bolshevism.
“Wilson is unmoved,” Fleming writes. Facing a group of American delegates to the peace conference, Wilson listens more or less patiently.

Most had quietly begun to change their views, but they were reluctant to challenge their leader.

Only Hoover and a pair of other delegates spoke out strongly against the treaty.
Wilson dismisses all their objections, exhorting them to “do the just thing” and support the treaty.
“The treaty was a hard one,” he argues, “but a hard one was needed.”
Why this was so he did not say, Fleming writes. Whereupon he ducked into his refuge, the League of Nations. “Everything would be solved to everyone’s satisfaction when Germany was admitted to the League.”

Despite waffling on Lloyd George’s part, others on that side are sharpening their attack on the Germans.
“The treaty sought justice,” they wrote, “justice for the dead, wounded, orphaned, and bereaved, who had fought to free Europe from Prussian despotism.”
“In a final insult to the liberals and socialists now in charge of Germany, they sneered that there was no guarantee that the current government represents a permanent change from Kaiserism.”
French PM Clemenceau, “the revenge seeker personified, could not have written a more offensive response.”And then comes a bombshell from the British delegation.
Fleming goes on: “Added to it was an ultimatum. Germany must sign within seven days or the war would be renewed.”
The German foreign minister now realizes there is only one move left: departure. It is now left to others from the German government to choose – sign the treaty or defy the Allies.
On the way back to Berlin, the Germans formulate a response, the only one possible in their view, a rejection. They call the war guilt clause “hateful and dishonorable” and condemn many other terms as “unbearable and impossible of fulfillment.”
The clock is now ticking on the Allied ultimatum.

 

  1 comment for “CRACKS IN THE ALLIED SIDE

  1. Christopher Daly
    at

    Having finished Garrett Peck’s “The Great War in America”, these posts are a great reminder of how victors can “win the war and lose the peace”.

    There’s so much more to come post-Paris and there’s not much ‘good’ in it.

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