assed and neither the French nor the British took steps toward the
opening of negotiations. They had not even appointed their delegates.
Lloyd George sent messages of welcome from across the Channel, but
explained that domestic affairs detained him in England. Conscious of the
struggle that was likely to arise between the "practical" aspirations of
Europe and the "idealism" of America, the Allied leaders evidently were
in no hurry to give to the exponent of the ideal the advantage of the
popular support that he enjoyed during the early days following his
arrival upon European shores. Hence it was not until the second week of
January that the delegations began to assemble at Paris. In the interval
Wilson had become involved in various detailed problems and he had lost
the opportunity, if indeed it ever offered, to demand immediate agreement
on preliminary terms of peace.

Notwithstanding the delays, the President secured an early triumph in the
matter which he had closest at heart, namely, a League of Nations and its
incorporation in the Treaty. Clemenceau had taken issue publicly with
Wilson. When the President, in the course of his English speeches,
affirmed that this was the first necessity of a world which had seen the
system of alliances fail too often, the French Premier replied in the
Chamber of Deputies, on the 29th of December, that for his part he held
to the old principle of alliances which had saved France in the past and
must save her in the future, and that his sense of the practical would
not be affected by the "_noble candeur_" of President Wilson. The polite
sneer that underlay the latter phrase aroused the wrath of the more
radical deputies, but the Chamber gave Clemenceau an overwhelming vote of
confidence as he thus threw down the gage. In the meantime Lloyd George
had shown himself apparently indifferent to the League and much more
interested in what were beginning to be called the "practical issues."

With the opening of the Conference, however, it soon became apparent that
Wilson had secured the support of the British delegates. It is possible
that a trade had been tacitly consummated. Certain it is that the
"freedom of the seas," which the British delegates were determined should
not enter into the issues of the Peace Conference and which had
threatened to make the chief difficulty between British and Americans,
was never openly discussed. Had Wilson decided to drop or postpone this
most indefinit