Proud Tower - Barbara W. Tuchman [164]
The Hague proved an inspired choice. The charm of the Huis ten Bosch (House in the Woods), summer palace of the House of Orange, where the Conference met, the pleasant half-hour’s drive from the seashore at Scheveningen, where many of the delegates stayed, the hospitality of the Netherlands Government and smiling welcome of its people, the summer weather and flowered countryside, could not fail to refresh the most cynical spirits. Black-and-white cows grazed peaceably along the roadside, canals reflected the radiant sky, the docile wings of windmills turned and sailboats moved seemingly over meadows, on waterways hidden by the tall grass. The once quiet town, a “gracious anachronism” of brick houses and cobblestone streets, bustled with welcome. Flags of all the nations decorated the staid hotels, windows were polished, doorsteps scrubbed, public buildings burnished and refurbished. Brought to animated life by its visitors, The Hague seemed to wake like a Sleeping Beauty from its Seventeenth Century slumbers.
The Huis ten Bosch was a royal château of red brick with white window frames set in a park on the outskirts of the town. Its windows opened on lawns and rose gardens, fountains and marble nymphs. In the woods which gave the place its name delegates could walk and talk between sessions along avenues of magnificent beeches where birds sang and the sun glinted through the leaves.
Plenary sessions were held in the central hall three stories high, hung with golden damask and frescoed with the triumphs of past Prince Stadtholders on throne and horseback. From the ceiling painted cupids, naked Venuses, and Death as a leering skeleton looked down upon the newly installed rows of green-baize desks seating 108 delegates from 26 countries. Black coats predominated, varied by military uniforms, by the Turks’ red fezzes and the blue silk gown of the Chinese delegate. The real work of the Conference took place in the subcommittees which met in the many small salons rich in Delft and Meissen, Chinese wallpaper and pale Persian carpets. Every day the Dutch hosts served a bountiful luncheon with fine wine and cigars under the crystal chandeliers of the White Dining Room, where the delegates could meet and talk informally. The taste and dignity of all the arrangements, the choice liqueurs, the beauty of the surroundings, the evening balls and receptions gradually began to mellow the mood of disdain in which the Conference began.
No such body had ever assembled “in a spirit of more hopeless skepticism as to any good result,” Andrew White believed when he arrived. The great Professor Mommsen of Germany, most admired historian of his time, predicted the Conference would be remembered as “a printer’s error in the history of the world.” Even some of Baroness von Suttner’s friends were less than hopeful. Prince Scipio Borghese, whom she invited to be present as an observer, replied that nothing would be more charming than to spend time with “un groupe du high-life pacifique,” but unfortunately in May he would have to attend his sister’s wedding in the depths of Hungary. During De Staal’s opening address, spoken in a voice alternately quavering and firm, the president dropped his wooden gavel, which was immediately, almost eagerly, seized upon as an ill omen. De Staal’s “deplorable” Russian ignorance of parliamentary procedure and his happy-go-lucky way of adopting rules and motions seemed to White to presage “hopeless chaos.”
The Conference divided itself into three Commissions: on Armaments, on the Laws of War, and on Arbitration, which in turn divided into subcommittees. The chairman of the First Commission was Auguste Beernaert, former premier and chief delegate of Belgium, who had once been called by King Leopold II “the greatest cynic in the kingdom.” A worldly politician in his early career, he had been the King’s right-hand man in the vast enterprise of the Congo as well as in Leopold’s efforts to fortify the Belgian frontier against invasion. Late in life, however, Beernaert