put on the same plane with Germany and received similar, in some respects, indeed, sterner, treatment.  The Germans were at least permitted to file objections to the conditions imposed and to point out flaws in the arrangements drafted, and their representations sometimes achieved their end.  It was otherwise with the Russians.  They were never consulted.  And when their representatives in Paris respectfully suggested that all such changes as might be decided upon by the Great Powers during their country’s political disablement should be taken to be provisional and be referred for definite settlement to the future constituent assembly, the request was ignored.

Of psychological rather than political interest was Mr. Wilson’s conscientious hesitation as to whether the nationalities which he was preparing to liberate were sufficiently advanced to be intrusted with self-government.  As stated elsewhere, his first impulse would seem to have been to appoint mandatories to administer the territories severed from Russia.  The mandatory arrangement under the ubiquitous League is said to have been his own.  Presumably he afterward acquired the belief that the system might be wisely dispensed with in the case of some of Russia’s border states, for they soon afterward received promises of independence and implicitly of protection against future encroachments by a resuscitated Russia.

In this connection a scene is worth reproducing which was enacted at the Peace Table before the system of administering certain territories by proxy was fully elaborated.  At one of the sittings the delegates set themselves to determine what countries should be thus governed,[129] and it was understood that the mandatory system was to be reserved for the German colonies and certain provinces of the Turkish Empire.  But in the course of the conversation Mr. Wilson casually made use of the expression, “The German colonies, the territories of the Turkish Empire and other territories.”  One of the delegates promptly put the question, “What other territories?” to which the President replied, unhesitatingly, “Those of the late Russian Empire.”  Then he added by way of explanation:  “We are constantly receiving petitions from peoples who lived hitherto under the scepter of the Tsars—­Caucasians, Central Asiatic peoples, and others—­who refuse to be ruled any longer by the Russians and yet are incapable of organizing viable independent states of their own.  It is meet that the desires of these nations should be considered.”  At this the Czech delegate, Doctor Kramarcz, flared up and exclaimed:  “Russia?  Cut up Russia?  But what about her integrity?  Is that to be sacrificed?” But his words died away without evoking a response.  “Was there no one,” a Russian afterward asked, “to remind those representatives of the Great Powers of their righteous wrath with Germany when the Brest-Litovsk treaty was promulgated?”