by Nick Barratt
It probably came as a relief to learn from the politicians that no meaningful dialogue would take place until 13 January 1919. One factor in the delay was Lloyd George’s decision to hold a snap election after the Armistice so that he could negotiate with a clear national mandate. This was scheduled to take place on 14 December but because of the large number of votes cast by returning troops, the official count could not take place until 28 December. This was the earliest date that the beleaguered Parker thought that the Hôtel Astoria would be ready for the various staff, although he was already trying to put off Penson and his intelligence clearing house until 2 January 1919. Their offices had already been moved up to the seventh floor of the Astoria in a final bid to accommodate everybody below.
It is easy to dismiss Antrobus’s observations about the nature of the diplomatic corps that began to descend on Paris from 8 January onwards, given his track record for acerbic commentary, but a more sober and senior member of the Foreign Office, Stephen Gaselee, confirmed that there was already a pessimism amongst the clerical staff about the outcome of a process bloated by ‘experts’:
Immediately after the War the Foreign Office had to spare for the Versailles Conference something like half the Office while many of the temporary clerks were transferred to Paris, where a huge office was set up. Among them were an army of experts on every subject that was likely to be discussed. I gather that those in the highest places were at times bewildered, to repeat a word already used, by the multitude of counsellors. The ‘hands’ that Lord Salisbury disliked were so numerous that it seemed impossible ever to reach a correct conclusion on questions, for instance, of nationality and frontiers. Those matters, however, are, in Queen Elizabeth’s phrase, ‘too great’ for the writers of this book.67
Nevertheless, the diplomatic perspective was slightly more optimistic, with seasoned professionals excited by the opportunity that Paris represented for their careers, given this was a once in a lifetime chance to forge a new world order. In the words of senior Foreign Office mandarin Robert Vansittart:
I was notified that I should attend the Peace Conference… for a moment I felt a cockiness which I had not experienced since my small boyhood… I became briefly ‘brilliant’… this conference was the finest and most promising thing in the world.68
Vansittart would continue his rise through the Foreign Office off the back of his presence in Paris, eventually ending up Permanent Under-Secretary in 1930 and playing an important role in Oldham’s life.
To echo Gaselee, a full rendition of conference proceedings is outside the scope of this book, so a summary of the key points shall suffice as they directly shaped the world in which Oldham worked. Once the delegates had started to arrive from 8 January, an inter-Allied preparatory meeting was held on 12 January to decide the shape of the main Peace Conference. It was agreed that there would be an initial Plenary Conference on 18 January at the Salle de l’Horloge at the French Foreign Ministry on the Quai d’Orsay; 70 delegates representing 27 countries attended. Expectations were wildly optimistic, as there was no real consensus about the remit of the conference or the mechanisms for reaching decisions. However, from the outset, the proceedings were dominated by the main powers – Britain, France, the USA and Italy – who had their own agendas and quickly framed the parameters for the other countries. Indeed, Clemenceau’s attitude was described by Foreign Office delegate Harold Nicolson as:
High-handed with the smaller Powers: ‘y-a-t-il d’objections? Non?... Adopté’. Like a machine gun.69
The American position was for a wider settlement, underpinned by a new ‘world governance’ in the form of the League of Nations championed by President Wilson. For Clemenceau and the French, the main aim was to completely dismantle the German military machine and ensure it was not rebuilt; harsh reparations, territorial gains and acceptance of the blame for starting the war were their objectives. The British position was somewhere in the middle. Lloyd George wished to ensure Germany paid reparations and disarmed, whilst redrawing the world map was an opportunity not to be missed. However, he also realised that the Germans needed to be able to pay their debts and should not have access to free trade markets restricted. Lurking in the background was the spectre of the revolutions in central and eastern Europe, with fears that too harsh a settlement would drive Germany into the arms of the Bolsheviks. Russia had not been invited to take part in the Allied conference, as the new regime had already made peace with the Central Powers at Brest-Litovsk. In the eyes of many British delegates, their omission from the peace talks was a mistake – Nicolson wrote in his diary on 9 January:
We hear that the Russians are constituting a committee or ‘conference’ of ambassadors... This will be highly awkward for those who wish to ignore Russia. I am delighted. After all, we are dealing with Russian interests behind their backs and the above committee have only to formulate a protest in writing for the [Paris] conference to be branded, in the history of a future Russia, as having deserted her in her trouble.70
Also excluded from the process were the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire, who had to wait until the conference concluded before they heard the terms they would be offered if they wished to secure peace. In many ways this was diplomacy down the barrel of a gun, since the Allied forces had an army of occupation in place in the Rhineland, waiting to resume hostilities at the first sign of disquiet.
The conference proceeded in stages, with a Bureau de Conference or ‘Council of Ten’ formed by two delegates from the main powers, including Japan. Britain was represented by Lloyd George and Balfour. However, it took another week to set up five general committees to look at specific issues – the League of Nations, reparations, the responsibilities of the authors of the war, international labour legislation and an international regime for ports, waterways and railways. Delays, plus a refusal by the politicians to communicate with the Foreign Office staff, led Hardinge to comment on 24 January that:
A precious fortnight has been wasted, our great men having thought that they could settle everything themselves, even to the smallest details, and that such things as committees were childish inventions of the FO [Foreign Office] or of the devil.71
Matters went from bad to worse. Territorial committees were set up at the end of January to deal with regional discussions but it wasn’t until 27 February that a central territorial committee was established to coordinate discussion across the others. By then, most of the work had been done in isolation. Headlam-Morley observed that:
The result was that week after week went by, each of the sections continued working by itself and no official arrangement was made for communication and consultation. Practically, owing to the fact that we were working in the same building and living in the same hotel, a great deal of informal and personal consultation took place, but this was at the beginning only very partial and, as far as I could make out, some of the sections – especially the economic and the financial which were of very great importance – continued to work on their own without any consultation or communication with others.72
The results were potentially catastrophic. As Nicolson put it:
We were never for one instant given to suppose that our recommendations were absolutely final. And thus we tended to accept compromises and even to support decisions which we ardently hoped would not, in the last resort, be approved.73
Despite a warning from Hardinge against ‘indiscreet talk’ at the Hôtel Majestic, most of the important business was conducted outside the official meetings – over dinners, in the bar or between sessions. In fact, the clerks where Oldham was working were almost certainly more aware of the bigger picture than some of the delegates themselves, as they saw a far wider range of material pass before their desks. However, the Foreign Office delegation felt increasingly frustrated by the lack of consultation, with Sir Eyre Crowe grumbling that:
I see no object in our collecting reports and information. Nobody wants or uses them, and our pigeon
holes are being filled with masses of papers which represent nothing but wastes of energy.74
Matters became even worse when the Council of Ten became the Council of Four in March, when Japan dropped out and the leaders of Britain, France, USA and Italy met informally to speed things along – although Italy also walked out over a territorial disagreement. Thus even Balfour was excluded from the decision-making process, with Hardinge complaining that:
I cannot help feeling that things here are going very badly. The settlement of the terms of peace is now in the hands of the four Prime Ministers who meet and draw up terms without expert advice and without any record being taken of what passes.75
The pressure on Hardinge eventually told as he found himself ‘for the first time in my life on the verge of a breakdown from overwork and over strain’. He began to suffer acute insomnia caused by:
Annoyance at the way I saw the negotiations being conducted here in Paris, regardless of the knowledge and experience of foreign affairs of which there were plenty in the British delegation, but which was absolutely ignored by the negotiators as being inconvenient towards some of their projects.76
There was also the stress of keeping things ticking over in London. Balfour commented in early February that, ‘I confess to find it very difficult in all cases whether a subject is being dealt with in London at the Foreign Office or in Paris or both.’77 Nicolson wrote in his diary on 17 April: ‘How they must hate us over there, poor people. We never tell them what is happening and we never answer any of their letters.’78 This was a pertinent remark; after all, junior staff such as Oldham were faced with the challenge of re-integrating amongst their colleagues in Whitehall after the conference concluded.
The length of time it was taking to resolve the various issues was not lost on the watching world, who were suspicious that everyone was enjoying themselves a little bit too much. The Foreign Office had already turned down an offer from Thomas Cook in December 1918 to help with various tours of Paris – ‘excursions in and around Paris are not contemplated for the British delegation to the Peace Conference, who will all be engaged on urgent official work’79 – but it was unreasonable to expect that Paris would be all work and no play. Everyone who was anyone could be found on the fringes of the conference. Nicolson noted a typical evening’s entertainment:
Saturday 15 February: dine with Lutyens at the Meurice and back to the Majestic where they have a dance on. Prince of Wales there – still shy and sad.80
It was not long before the press picked up on extra-curricular activities. The Times reported on The Majestic at play in March 1919.
Visitors to the Hotel Majestic in Paris may sometimes come away doubting whether everybody in it is as anxious as the rest of the world for the peace conference to do its work and to disperse. When one sees the dancing room, the theatre, the restaurant, all crowded with interesting figures and when one compares the lot of a secretary in ordinary life with the lot of the 140 efficient people who aid the delegates and the sub-delegates and the co-opted experts and the secretaries to the delegates and sub-delegates and experts, it is impossible to believe that the conference turns to the staff at the Majestic the same face that it turns to government potentates and ordinary citizens.81
In particular, the report drew attention to an evening entertainment put on by the British delegation’s dramatic company, which packed out the theatre situated in the basement. The first play was in French; the second was a typical piece of British self-mockery – a series of skits in which all aspects of the conference were gently ridiculed.
It was a pity that Mr Alwyn Parker was not present to hear the reference to ‘Ali Parker and the 140 Clerks’… A government department which was not laughed at could be safely pronounced a ‘dud’.82
As the conference dragged on into yet another month, the Times correspondent summed up the mood back in England:
It is a happy family at the Majestic: and it would be a good idea to give them all pensions to keep them there. Could we at the same time pension the Conference to go somewhere else?83
This was a little unfair on the ‘140 clerks’ whose workload was relentless while the committees sat, continued to discuss and produced ever more paperwork – all of which was categorised, indexed and filed for reference. Yet men like Oldham, involved at the heart of the bureaucracy and thus privy to the multiple lines of negotiation, would still have had time to join the throngs of diplomats and politicians mingling in the foyer of the Majestic for the various receptions, as well as their counterparts from other delegations and countless international lawyers who regaled them with tall tales over dinner or at the bar. Such conversations and contacts could make or break careers – especially if the right information was passed to the correct interested party who could return the favour later on. It is hard to describe this ‘below the counter’ diplomacy as espionage, as technically everyone was on the same side and working towards a common goal. However, a large amount of horse trading was conducted at the Majestic and elsewhere that would decide the fate of millions, as borders were drawn and redrawn based on subtle negotiations outside the committee rooms. It was in this environment that Oldham saw how diplomacy worked at grass roots level, despite Hardinge’s reminder to delegates and support staff against ‘indiscreet talk’.
Then, suddenly, a new pace was injected into proceedings in mid-April when the Council of Four invited the Germans to hear their peace terms, summoning them to attend the conference at the start of May. A quiet panic gripped the Foreign Office staff as they redoubled their work in the hope that they could iron out all the issues with the proposed treaty. Headlam-Morley expressed his grave concerns on 21 April:
I am getting hopeless about the whole business; there is no fully responsible control exercised from the political side. Many things have been left until the last moment; the work is very much in arrears and I do not see how it is possible to have the treaty ready by the end of the week. What I fear is that the Germans will be able to put their fingers on a great number of points which show bad workmanship. Throughout, nothing has been thought of in advance and points of the greatest importance have been postponed until the last moment.84
The final push brought most of the delegates to their knees – Nicolson confided in his diary on 13 May that he was ‘nearly dead with fatigue and indignation’.85 Nevertheless, a draft treaty was ready to present to the Germans on 7 May. Gallic desire to weaken Germany as much as possible had largely won the day. When rebuked over the severity of the terms, Clemenceau scolded Lloyd George that Britain had the safety of the Channel to protect it whereas France had to share a land border. This paranoia lay behind huge territorial demands and continued occupation of the left bank of the Rhine, coupled with stringent financial reparations to the Allies in compensation for damage caused during the war and a wider demilitarisation of the German state. Equally contentious was the admission of German war guilt. Needless to say, when the German delegation was invited to Versailles to hear the conditions that were to be imposed their Foreign Minister, Graf von Brockdorff-Rantzau, declared:
We know the full brunt of hate that confronts us here. You demand from us to confess we were the only guilty party of war; such a confession in my mouth would be a lie.
The Germans protested that they had not been permitted to take part in the negotiations and therefore that the terms they were being asked to accept were unjust – exactly what many Foreign Office staff had been concerned about. Despite a deep aversion to the conditions, which had provoked widespread condemnation back home, they were given no choice but to sign – although this only took place on 28 June 1919 under the threat of renewed hostilities, with Allied troops prepared to march out of the Rhineland to force compliance if the final deadline was not met.
If the aim was to humiliate Germany, then the Versailles ceremony was a success – the acknowledgement of war guilt was still in place. The ceremony took place in the glittering hall of mirrors in Louis XIV’s palace at Versailles, wi
th hundreds of dignitaries present to watch the historic moment. Nicolson was one of them and he vividly recalled when the time came for the Germans to sign:
Through the door at the end appear two huissiers [officers of the court] with silver chains. They march in single file. After them come four officers of France, Great Britain, America and Italy. And then, isolated and pitiable, come the two German delegates. Dr Muller, Dr Bell. The silence is terrifying. Their feet upon a strip of parquet between the Savonnerie carpets echo hollow and duplicate. They keep their eyes fixed away from those two thousand staring eyes, fixed upon the ceiling. They are deathly pale. They do not appear as representatives of a brutal militarism. The one is thin and pink-eyelidded; the second fiddle in a Brunswick orchestra. The other is moon-faced and suffering: a privatdozent. It is almost painful.86
Later that night he added that there were:
Celebrations at the hotel afterwards. We are given free champagne at the expense of the taxpayer. It is very bad champagne. Go out on to the boulevards afterwards. To bed, sick of life.87
Although the main work was done, the peace process continued beyond Versailles as, one by one, the Central Powers were brought to account. Austria signed the Treaty of Saint-Germain on 10 September; Bulgaria agreed to the Treaty of Neuilly on 27 November while it took until 4 June 1920 before Hungary was able to sign the Treaty of Trianon, given internal upheavals and war with its neighbours throughout most of 1919. The last peace agreement was concluded with the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire at the Treaty of Sèvres on 10 August 1920. However, by this date the British secretariat at the Majestic had long since disbanded and drifted home. By the end of June 1919 the hotel was virtually empty. Oldham and his associates had played their part in making history and with some regret returned to London to face their abandoned colleagues in a vastly different Foreign Office to the one they had left behind.