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 that he had not seen where he was going, but his frequent irritation was the sign of his distress.  Still, in the ship-wreck of his whole programme, he had succeeded in saving one thing, the Statute of the League of Nations which was to be prefaced to all the treaties.  He wanted to go back to America and meet the Senate with at least something to show as a record of the great undertaking, and he hoped and believed in good faith that the Covenant of the League of Nations would sooner or later have