The Central Powers’ mediators, both at Versailles and St. Germain, would have been glad had they been treated in the same way as the Marghiloman Ministry was treated.

The Roumanians lost the Dobrudsha, but acquired safe and guaranteed access to the sea; they lost a district of sparsely populated mountainous country to us, and through us they acquired Bessarabia.

They gained far more than they lost.

CHAPTER XII

FINAL REFLECTIONS

The farther the world war progressed, the more did it lose the character of the work of individual men.  It assumed rather the character of a cosmic event, taking more and more from the effectiveness of the most powerful individuals.

All settlements on which coalitions were based were connected with certain war aims by the Cabinets, such as the promises of compensation given to their own people, the hopes of gain from the final victory.  The encouragement of intense and boundless hatred, the increasing crude brutality of the world all tended to create a situation making each individual like a small stone which, breaking away from an avalanche of stones, hurls itself downwards without a leader and without goal, and is no longer capable of being guided by anyone.

The Council of Four at Versailles tried for some time to make the world believe that they possessed the power to rebuild Europe according to their own ideas.  According to their own ideas!  That signified, to begin with, four utterly different ideas, for four different worlds were comprised in Rome, Paris, London, and Washington.  And the four representatives—­“the Big Four,” as they were called—­were each individually the slave of his programme, his pledges, and his people.  Those responsible for the Paris negotiations in camera, which lasted for many months, and were a breeding ground for European anarchy, had their own good reasons for secrecy; there was no end to the disputes, for which no outlet could be found.

Here, Wilson had been scoffed at and cursed because he deserted his programme; certainly, there is not the slightest similarity between the Fourteen Points and the Peace of Versailles and St. Germain, but it is forgotten now that Wilson no longer had the power to enforce his will against the three others.  We do not know what occurred behind those closed doors, but we can imagine it, and Wilson probably fought weeks and months for his programme.  He could have broken off proceedings and left!  He certainly could have done so, but would the chaos have been any less; would it have been any better for the world if the only one who was not solely imbued with the lust of conquest had thrown down his arms?  But Clemenceau, too, the direct opposite of Wilson, was not quite open in his dealings.  Undoubtedly this old man, who now at the close of his life was able to satisfy his hatred of the Germans of 1870, gloried in the triumph; but, apart from that, if he had tried to conclude a “Wilson peace,” all the private citizens of France, great and small, would have risen against him, for they had been told for the last five years:  Que les boches payeront tout.  What he did, he enjoyed doing; but he was forced to do it or France would have dismissed him.