e.

Clemenceau's reply, issued a few days later, contains the French point
of view, and has an ironical note when it touches on the weak points
in Lloyd George's argument. The War, says the French note, was not a
European war; Germany's eyes were fixed on world power, and she
saw that her future was on the sea. There is no necessity to show
consideration regarding territorial conditions in Europe. By taking
away her commercial fleet, her colonies and her foreign markets more
harm is done to Germany than by taking European territory. To pacify
her (if there is any occasion for doing so) she must be offered
commercial satisfaction. At this point the note, in considering
questions of justice and of mere utility, becomes distinctly ironical.

Having decided to bring to life new States, especially Poland and
Czeko-Slovakia, why not give them safe frontiers even if some Germans
or Magyars have to be sacrificed?

One of Clemenceau's fixed ideas is that criterions of justice must not
be applied to Germans. The note says explicitly that, given the German
mentality, it is by no means sure that the conception of justice of
Germany will be the same as that of the Allies.

On another occasion, after the signing of the treaty, when Lloyd
George pointed out the wisdom of not claiming from Germany the
absurdity of handing over thousands of officers accused of cruelty
for judgment by their late enemies, and recognized frankly the
impossibility of carrying out such a stipulation in England,
Clemenceau replied simply that the Germans are not like the English.

The delicate point in Clemenceau's note is the contradiction in which
he tries to involve the British Prime Minister between the clauses of
the treaty concerning Germany outside Europe, in which no moderation
had been shown, and those regarding Germany in Europe, in which he
himself did not consider moderation either necessary or opportune.

There was an evident divergence of views, clearing the way for a calm
review of the conditions to be imposed, and here two countries could
have exercised decisive action: the United States and Italy.

But the United States was represented by Wilson, who was already in a
difficult situation. By successive concessions, the gravity of which
he had not realized, he found himself confronted by drafts of treaties
which in the end were contradictions of all his proposals, the
absolute antithesis of the pledges he had given. It is quite possible