In effect the split among the delegates respecting their aims and interests led to a tacit understanding among the leaders on the basis of give-and-take, the French and British acquiescing in Mr. Wilson’s measures for working out his Covenant—­the draft of which was contributed by the British—­and the President, giving way to them on matters said to affect their countries’ vital interests.  How smoothly this method worked when great issues were not at stake may be inferred from the perfunctory way in which it was decided that the Kaiser’s trial should take place in London.  A few days before the Treaty was signed there was a pause in the proceedings of the Supreme Council during which the secretary was searching for a mislaid document.  Mr. Lloyd George, looking up casually and without addressing any one in particular, remarked, “I suppose none of you has any objection to the Kaiser being tried in London?” M. Clemenceau shrugged his shoulders, Mr. Wilson raised his hand, and the matter was assumed to be settled.  Nothing more was said or written on the subject.  But when the news was announced, after the President’s departure from France, it took the other American delegates by surprise and they disclaimed all knowledge of any such decision.  On inquiry, however, they learned that the venue had in truth been fixed in this offhand way.[95]

Mr. Wilson found it a hard task at first to obtain acceptance for his ill-defined tenets by France, who declined to accept the protection of his League of Nations in lieu of strategic frontiers and military guaranties.  Insurmountable obstacles barred his way.  The French government and people, while moved by decent respect for their American benefactors[96] to assent to the establishment of a league, flatly refused to trust themselves to its protection against Teuton aggression.  But they were quite prepared to second Mr. Wilson’s endeavors to oblige some of the other states to content themselves with the guaranties it offered, only, however, on condition that their own country was first safeguarded in the traditional way.  Territorial equilibrium and military protection were the imperative provisos on which they insisted.  And as France was specially favored by Mr. Wilson on sentimental grounds which outweighed his doctrine, and as she was also considered indispensable to the Anglo-Saxon peoples as their continental executive, she had no difficulty in securing their support.  On this point, too, therefore, the President found himself constrained to give way.  And only did he abandon his humanitarian intentions and his strongest arguments to be lightly brushed aside, he actually recoiled so far into the camp of his opponents that he gave his approval to an indefensible clause in the Treaty which would have handed over to France the German population of the Saar as the equivalent of a certain sum in gold.  Coming from the world-reformer who, a short time before, had hurled the thunderbolts of his oratory against those who would barter human beings