In the treaty the occupation of the left bank of the Rhine and the bridgeheads by the allied and associated powers for fifteen years was introduced as a compromise.  Such districts will be evacuated by degrees every five years if Germany shall have faithfully carried out the terms of the treaty.  Now the conditions of the treaty are in large measure impossible of execution, and in consequence no execution of them can ever be described as faithful.  Further, the occupying troops are paid by Germany.  It follows that the conception of the occupation of the left bank of the Rhine was of a fact of unlimited duration.  The harm that would result from the occupation was pointed out at the Conference by the American representatives and even more strongly by the English.  What was the use of it, they asked, if the German army were reduced to 100,000 men?  M. Tardieu himself tells the story of all the efforts made, especially by Lloyd George and Bonar Law, to prevent the blunder which later on was endorsed in the treaty as Article 428.  Lloyd George went so far as to complain of political intrigues for creating disorder on the Rhine.  But Clemenceau took care to put the question in such a form that no discussion was possible.  In the matter of the occupation, he said to the English, you do not understand the French point of view.  You live in an island with the sea as defence, we on the continent with a bad frontier.  We do not look for an attack by Germany but for systematic refusal to carry out the terms of the treaty.  Never was there a treaty with so many clauses, with, consequently, so many opportunities for evasion.  Against that risk the material guarantee of occupation is necessary.  There are two methods in direct contrast:  En Angleterre on croit que le moyen d’y reussir est de faire des concessions.  En France nous croyons que c’est de brusquer.

On March 14 Lloyd George and Wilson had offered France the fullest military guarantee in place of the occupation of the left bank of the Rhine.  France wanted, and in fact got, the occupation as well as the alliances. “Notre but?” says Tardieu. “Sceller la garantie offerte, mais y ajouter l’occupation.”  Outside the Versailles Treaty the United States and Great Britain had made several treaties of alliance with France for the event of unprovoked aggression by Germany.  Later on the French-English Treaty was approved by the House of Commons, the French-American underwent the same fate as the Versailles Treaty.  But the treaty with Great Britain fell through also on account of the provision that it should come into force simultaneously with the American Treaty.

In a Paris newspaper Poincare published in September, 1921, some strictly reserved documents on the questions of the military guarantees and the occupation of the left bank of the Rhine.  He wished to get the credit of having stood firm when Clemenceau himself hesitated at the demand for an occupation of the left bank of the Rhine for even a longer period than fifteen years.  He has published the letter he sent to Clemenceau to be shown to Wilson and Lloyd George and the latter’s reply.