The work of the conference was early divided into various parts with a commission to investigate and report for each. Thus there were commissions on the formation of a League of Nations, on fixing responsibility for the war, on determining the reparation for damages, on international labor legislation, on international control over ports, waterways and railroads, on economic drafting, and on economic co-opera tion among the Allies. But a much more import ant body than any of these commissions was the central commission of the Peace Conference, which seems to have grown un out of the sheer prominence of the five great powers. It was composed of President Wilson and Secretary of State Lansing, and of the prime ministers and foreign secretaries of the four other states of class 1. It was sometirnes lcnown as the Big Ten, and since each pair was dominated by one man, it eventually came to be the Big Five. Here was the centre of power of the Peace Con ference. Account should be talcen, also, of the Supreme War Council, which sat at Versailles during the second half of the war. Under the presidency of Marshal Foch it sat through the conference period with its eyes on the execution of the armistice and on similar affairs. But even this council did not resist the all-powerful Council of Ten, which superseded it at times or sat with and dominated it at others; but the Big Ten generally left the Supreme Allied Council to its own will in matters purely military.
Problems of the Peace first session was held in the Salle de la Paix at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Quai d'Orsay, Paris, 18 Jan. 1919, at 3 P.M. Im pressive ceremonies marked the opening of the session. Soldiers saluted the arriving delegates, trumpets sounded shrill notes of honor, digni taries escorted the delegates to their places around a great green table, and the President of the French Republic made a speech of wel come. Then President Wilson rose and nomi nated M. Clemenceau, the French premier, for president of the conference, and Mr. Lloyd George seconded the nomination, which was carried unanimously. In a short speech Clemen ceau pointed out the chief business before the delegates. At the head of the program he placed the proposition for a League of Nations, and after that reparation, responsibility for the war, and the international relations of labor. He invited each nation to submit proposals in regard to each subject M. Clemenceau, however, did not allude to the crop of jealousies and local ambitions that were already springing up among the nations represented at the conference. An American editor who was in Paris thus put it: °The vanities, cupidities and pugnacities which mas querade as 'national aspirations' are seething beneath the serenity of the Quai d'Orsay.° He added that the opportunism of politicians, the materialism of business classes and the mili tarism of the professional soldiers operated to make a sinister peace in which should appear all the selfish motives that had characterized the congresses of Vienna and Berlin in whose delib erations were sown the seeds of the World's War. Over against these tendencies, said the
same journalist, were three forces that worked for a treaty in which were the elements of permanent peace, and these were: The world's revolt against war, the disgust of liberal minded people in all nations at the theory of the Balance of Power, and President Wilson's determination to place the project for a League of Nations at the head of any treaty that was made. The diagnosis was correct. In its large relations the conference was a battle royal be tween the forces of international liberalism and those of selfish nationalism. President Wilson led the first and used freely in support of his cause the immense prestige which the United States had at the time. The leaders of the °the' side N\ (ii morally weak and did not dare fight openly for their views. They did not give them up specifically and did not defend theta as principles; and before President Wilson's at tacks they were mute. But they did not cease to contend for the specific ends they had in mind, and in the conference they were some times strong enough to force Mr. Wilson to a compromise that gave the lie to the Fourteen Points, which they had accepted. It must not be thought that the situation here indicated was solely due to the leaders of the European states. It was as frequently due to the states of mind of the people. There was scarcely a statesman who stood out for a narrow national 'policy at Paris who did not know it would be politically foolish for him ,o do otherwise. The peoples of Europe had suffered a ereat deal and looked for some easing of their burdens at the expense of the defeated, or they had acquired definite convictions that their °national aspirations" were justified, and it would have been ill for a politi cal leader or party that opposed them.
In this situation the United States and their President were to play a large part. The posi tion of the one among the nations at the con ference and of the other as a champion of international justice were chiefly responsible for this peculiar eminence. So deeply were the doubts and suspicions of European states rooted in past diplomatic history that no European nation at Paris trusted the other European nations to deal fairly_ But they all trusted the United States, at first, because it had never become allied with the intrigues of Europe. When they learned the United States would not take up their quarrels, most of their confidence turned into scorn.