Paris 1919 - Margaret Macmillan [108]
Wilson eventually agreed, unenthusiastically, to a commission to investigate responsibility for the war and appropriate penalties for the guilty. Its American members, who included Lansing, refused to agree that the Germans should be tried for crimes against humanity. Wilson warned his fellow peacemakers in the Council of Four that it would be much better to leave the kaiser alone with his disgrace: “Charles I was a contemptible character and the greatest liar in history; he was celebrated by poetry and transformed into a martyr by his execution.” In a spirit of compromise (and perhaps to get the amendment on the Monroe Doctrine that he wanted in the League covenant), Wilson finally agreed to a clause accusing Wilhelm of “a supreme offence against international morality and the sanctity of treaties” and invited the government of the Netherlands to hand him over. The lesser German criminals were to be tried by special military tribunals once the German government had surrendered them. “The rabbit must first be caught” was the opinion of one of the American experts.15
By the spring of 1919, the public appetite for the chase was waning. When the Netherlands refused to give up the kaiser, the Allies, who could scarcely be seen to be bullying a small neutral country, acquiesced. On June 25, shortly before the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, the Council of Four discussed the matter one last time. The mood was jovial rather than vindictive. The kaiser should be brought to England, said Lloyd George. “Be careful not to let him sink,” said Clemenceau. “Yes, judgement in England, execution in France.” Where shall we send him afterward, wondered Lloyd George. Canada? Some island? “Please don’t send him to Bermuda,” cried Wilson. “I want to go there myself!” 16
The kaiser lived on until 1941, writing his memoirs, reading P. G. Wodehouse, drinking English tea, walking his dogs and fulminating against the international Jewish conspiracy which, he had discovered, had brought Germany and himself low. He thrilled to “the succession of miracles” when Hitler started the war in 1939, and he died just before the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The Allies eventually gave up the idea of trying any Germans themselves. They sent a list of names— including those of Hindenburg and Ludendorff—to the German government, which set up a special court. Out of the hundreds named, twelve were tried. Most were set free at once. A couple of submarine officers who sank lifeboats full of wounded received sentences of four years each; they escaped after a few weeks and were never found.17
14
Keeping Germany Down
THE MILITARY CLAUSES of the treaty, which the Council of Four had started to look at even before the midwinter break, warned that dealing with Germany was infinitely more difficult than dealing with the kaiser. Most people agreed that militarism and huge armed forces, especially the German, were bad for the world; indeed, books arguing that the arms race had caused the Great War were already starting to appear. One of Wilson’s Fourteen Points talked about reducing national armaments “to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety,” and one of the selling points of the League was that it would provide such security that nations would willingly cut back on their armed forces. Lloyd George, who knew that conscription was deeply unpopular in Britain, seized on the idea with enthusiasm. Disarming the most powerful nation on the continent was clearly an important first step to the more general disarmament to be carried out by the League. Although it mattered much less, the Allies intended to impose stringent