The Pittsburgh Press (September 5, 1944)
Why we lost the peace –
Simms: Allies lacked statesmen to enforce pact they made in World War I
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
Last of two articles.
Washington –
Gen. Pershing did his utmost in 1918 to persuade the Allies to occupy Berlin. But to their bitter regret, later on, he was overruled.
Some – especially in Britain and France – still hold President Wilson largely to blame for ending the war at Compiègne instead of at Berlin. But these are hindsight critics, as “Tiger” Clemenceau, the French Premier, called them. not only did he and Marshal Foch both agree with Wilson that the war should not be prolonged a single day beyond military requirements, but, he wrote, David Lloyd George and Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig led “all others” in opposing harsh measures.
“When he sent us the American Army,” Clemenceau related, “Mr. Wilson had asked if we were prepared to cease fighting on the day the Germans accepted his 14 Points.” And Clemenceau answered yes.
Clemenceau related that Lloyd George once threatened to withdraw from the peace conference “if I did not consent to the occupation of the Rhineland for only two years instead of 15.” Angrily the French Premier replied that if Lloyd George withdrew, he [Clemenceau] would lay his resignation before the Chamber of Deputies and tell the world why he did so, Even them, he added, “without the stalwart support of Mr. Wilson the treaty that day would have been a mangled corpse.”
The chief trouble with the Allies, the “Tiger” never ceased to growl, was not that they failed to make a harsh peace, but that they lacked statesmen with the will to enforce the peace they made.
When the French entered the Ruhr to enforce the peace terms, the outcry in the United States and England was deafening. France, it was said, was “militaristic.” When Poincaré made his famous series of speeches, warning against German perfidy, the same thing happened. The British and French evacuated the Rhineland long before the date fixed by the treaty and Allied opinion forced France to follow suit.
When Hitler denounced the military clauses of the treaty and openly began to rearm, France did not like it but Anglo-American opinion remained indifferent. When the Nazis reoccupied the Rhineland and France wanted to throw them out – even at the price of a “preventive war” – Britain warned France she could not count on Britain being at her side.
The lessons of Clemenceau and of events are clear. Whether or not we occupy Berlin this time, Germany will find a way to stage a third world war unless we remain permanently vigilant. The second World War was due, not to any lack of firmness in the peace of Paris, but to a lack of firmness in ourselves afterwards. We got “soft” and Germany came within an ace of destroying us. Next time – if we get “soft” – she may succeed.