AMERICAN INTERVENTION PROPOSED IN 1916

Historic Memorandum Approved by President Wilson and Initialed by Sir Edward Grey.

THE accompanying "Memorandum" drawn up by Sir Edward Grey, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and Colonel Edward M. House, confidential representative of President Wilson, is a most interesting revelation in Grey's memoirs, "Twenty-five Years, 1892-1916," fro tn Which this account is taken by permission of Frederick A. Stokes Company. As Grey states, President Wilson explicitly approved of this document, dated February 22, 1916 (three years before the war ended), which provided that the United States should call a peace conference, should suggest certain terms, including the return of Alsace-Lorraine, and "if it failed to secure peace, the United States should leave the conference on the side of the Allies, if Germany Was unreasonable."

Visiting Berlin shortly after this memorandum was made, Colonel House quickly learned, and so informed President Wilson, that Germany would consent to no such terms of peace except under compulsion.

IN February, 1916, House drafted with me a memorandum to define as precisely as could be done in advance the action that President Wilson would be prepared to take, and the terms of peace that he would use all the influence of his country to secure. A copy was left with me, and House took the memorandum to Washington to get the text confirmed by the President. From Washington he cabled confirming it, with the alteration of only one word. The following is the final form of the document as authorized by President Wilson:

MEMORANDUM

Colonel House told me that President Wilson was ready, on hearing from France and England that the moment was opportune, to propose that a conference should be summoned to put an end to the war. Should the Allies accept this proposal, and should Germany refuse it, the United States would probably enter the war against Germany.

Colonel House expressed the opinion that, if such a Conference met, it would secure peace on terms not unfavorable to the Allies; and, if it failed to secure peace, the United States would leave the Conference as a belligerent on the side of the Allies, if Germany was unreasonable. Colonel House expressed an opinion decidedly favorable to the restoration of Belgium, the transfer of Alsace and Lorraine to France, and the acquisition by Russia of an outlet to the sea, though he thought that the loss of territory incurred by Germany in one place would have to be compensated to her by concessions to her in other places outside Europe.

If the Allies delayed accepting the offer of President Wilson, and if, later on, the course of the war was so unfavorable to them that the intervention of the United States would not be effective, the United States would probably disinterest themselves in Europe and look to their own protection in their own way.

I said that I felt the statement, coming from the President of the United States, to be a matter of such importance that I must inform the Prime Minister and my colleagues; but that I could say nothing until it had received their consideration. The British Government could, under no circumstances, accept or make any proposal except in consultation and agreement with the Allies. I thought that the Cabinet would probably feel that the present situation would not justify them in approaching their Allies on this subject at the present moment; but, as Colonel House had had an intimate conversation with M. Briand and M. Jules Cambon in Paris, I should think it right to tell M. Briand privately, through the French Ambassador in London, what Colonel House had said to us; and I should, of course, whenever there was an opportunity, be ready to talk the matter over with M. Briand, if he desired it.

(Initialed) E. G. Foreign Office,

February 22, 1916.

At present there was no use to be made of it. We believed and the French believed, that defeat of the German armies was the only sure overthrow of Prussian militarism, and to the French the recovery of the lost provinces of 1870 had become an object to be fought for. Before 1914 France had given up the idea of going to war to recover them, but once war was forced upon her, she was determined to fight on to win them. Both France and Russia had up to this time suffered more heavily in the war than we had. We could never be the first to recommend peace to them. We still had large reserves of men to train, group and bring into action. We were bound to go on till we had used all our yet undeveloped strength to support our Allies, and in the effort to defeat Germany. We all felt that we could take no initiative in the American direction.

The communication to the French was a matter of extreme delicacy. If nothing was said to them, and if things took a sudden turn for the worse, I should be open to the gravest reproach; the French would say with justice that they ought to have been told that this means of terminating the war had been open to the Allies. The imputation would be that I had kept the knowledge of it from them, lest they should be disposed to take advantage of the opportunity offered by it. The memorandum was in effect an offer by President Wilson to end the war in the terms described, and, if Germany refused, then to bring the United States into the war against her. If we ignored President Wilson's offer, the Allies might forfeit his sympathy, and for that we alone should be held responsible, if the French had not known of what had passed between House and ourselves.

On the other hand, to recommend the memorandum to the French was to suggest that we were weakening and to undermine their confidence in our determination to support them. Furthermore, to have made such a recommendation without the approval of the Cabinet or at least the War Committee would have been disloyal to colleagues; and the War Committee, with my full concurrence, had decided not to take the matter up. I therefore let M. Briand, then French Prime Minister, know of it without recommending it.

It appears from recent German disclosures that in the autumn of 1916, if not before, the German Government became aware of the intention of President Wilson to approach them, and that they eventually countered this by an intimation to him of their terms of peace that may well have made him despair of anything like a just peace being secured except by the use of force. If so, the House Memorandum, by the time I sent it to Balfour, had ceased to have importance for President Wilson, who knew now that even such terms as he thought just could not be obtained from Germany except by force; and that, if the United States was to take any part in securing them, it must be by the use of force. The German defiance in the submarine warfare precipitated war between America and Germany, but the German manner of countering his mediation policy must surely have turned President Wilson's thoughts in the direction of war.

How does it all look now? In the light of after-events, it is clear that Germany missed a great opportunity of peace. If she had accepted the Wilson policy, and was ready to agree to a Conference, the Allies could not have refused. They were dependent on American supplies ; they could not have risked the ill-will of the Government of the United States, still less a rapprochement between the United States and Germany. Germans have only to reflect upon the peace that they might have had in 1916 compared with the peace of 1919.

Did the Allies also miss an opportunity? The notion would have been scouted when the Treaty of Versailles was signed; judged by that, and in the light of victory, the terms of the House Memorandum seem preposterously inadequate. But now, some years after the mighty peace of 1919, the condition of Europe is sufficiently disappointing to make it interesting to imagine what the course of events might conceivably have been if the Allies and Germany in 1916 had told President Wilson that they were ready for the Conference he was prepared to summon.