lief that the
Treaty would be not only formally, but substantially and in its spirit
an integral, part of the general settlement based on the Fourteen
Points.

This anticipation turned out to be a delusion. Wilsonianism proved to be
a very different system from that of the Fourteen Points, and its author
played the part not only of an interpreter of his tenets, but also of a
sort of political pope alone competent to annul the force of laws
binding on all those whom he should refuse to dispense from their
observance. He had to do with patriotic politicians permeated with the
old ideas, desirous of providing in the peace terms for the next war and
striving to secure the maximum of advantage over the foe presumptive, by
dismembering his territory, depriving him of colonies, making him
dependent on others for his supplies of raw stuffs, and artificially
checking his natural growth. Nearly all of them had principles to invoke
in favor of their claims and some had nothing else. And it was these
tendencies which Mr. Wilson sought to combine with the ethical ideals to
be incarnated in the Society of Nations. Now this was an impossible
synthesis. The spirit of vindictiveness--for that was well represented
at the Conference--was to merge and lose itself in an outflow of
magnanimity; precautions against a hated enemy were to be interwoven
with implicit confidence in his generosity; a military occupation would
provide against a sudden onslaught, while an approach to disarmament
would bear witness to the absence of suspicion. Thus Poland would
discharge the function of France's ally against the Teutons in the east,
but her frontiers were to leave her inefficiently protected against
their future attacks from the west. Germany was dismembered, yet she
was credited with self-discipline and generosity enough to steel her
against the temptation to profit by the opportunity of joining together
again what France had dissevered. The League of Nations was to be based
upon mutual confidence and good fellowship, yet one of its most powerful
future members was so distrusted as to be declared permanently unworthy
to possess any overseas colonies. Germany's territory in the Saar Valley
is admittedly inhabited by Germans, yet for fifteen years there is to be
a foreign administration there, and at the end of it the people are to
be asked whether they would like to cut the bonds that link them with
their own state and place themselves under French s