Paris 1919 - Margaret Macmillan [310]
Paul Cambon thought the whole affair disgraceful. “They lack only music and ballet girls, dancing in step, to offer the pen to the plenipotentiaries for signing. Louis XIV liked ballets, but only as a diversion; he signed treaties in his study. Democracy is more theatrical than the great king.” House thought it more like a Roman triumph, with the defeated being dragged behind their conqueror’s chariots: “To my mind it is out of keeping with the new era which we profess an ardent desire to promote. I wish it could have been more simple and that there might have been an element of chivalry, which was wholly lacking. The whole affair was elaborately staged and made as humiliating to the enemy as it well could be.” Perhaps, thought a young American more optimistically, the old vicious cycle of revenge and more revenge in Europe had finally been broken.49
The audience at first watched in respectful silence, but as the minutes dragged by the noise of conversation rose. Delegates who had finished signing wandered off to chat to friends. Others took copies of their programs around to get autographs. The Germans sat in solitude until finally a daring Bolivian, and then two Canadians, came up to ask for their signatures. After three quarters of an hour there was a call for silence and Clemenceau pronounced the meeting over. The Germans were escorted out. Müller had promised himself that he would be businesslike: “I wanted our ex-enemies to see nothing of the deep pain of the German people, whose representative I was at this tragic moment.” Back at the hotel he collapsed. “A cold sweat such as I had never known in my life before broke out all over my body—a physical reaction which necessarily followed the unutterable psychic strain. And now, for the first time, I knew that the worst hour of my life lay behind me.” He and the rest of his party insisted on leaving for Germany that night.50
The peacemakers walked down to the terrace overlooking the great formal gardens as the fountains spurted into the air. A huge and enthusiastic crowd surged around them. Wilson was nearly pushed into a fountain. Lloyd George was rescued, angry and disheveled, by a squad of soldiers. “A similar thing would never have happened in England,” he told an Italian diplomat. “And if it had happened, someone would have had to pay.” Afterward Lloyd George, much to his annoyance, was made to sit down and write a letter to the king announcing that the peace had been concluded. 51
Wilson left by train that night for Le Havre and the United States. Clemenceau came to see him off and, according to one reporter, said with unusual emotion, “I feel as though I were losing one of the best friends I ever had.” A small crowd uttered a few listless cries to speed the Americans on their way. At the Hôtel Majestic the British were given a special celebratory dinner, with one more course than usual and free champagne. Afterward there were dances, one for the hotel staff and another for the guests. Smuts, perhaps as yet another protest against the treaty, joined the staff dance. Paris itself became a giant party, as the streets filled with people singing and dancing. Along the Grands Boulevards the buildings blazed with lights and cars towed the captured German cannon about. (It took the authorities days to collect them all again.) Late that night, as Lansing finished up his account of the day, he could still hear the noise of celebrations outside.52
While Paris rejoiced, Germany mourned. In its cities and towns the flags flew at half-mast. Even