conquerors. After the vote of the Senate, deserving of all praise
from every point of view, the United States does not form part of the
League nor do the losing countries, including Germany.

It is therefore obvious that the most solemn pledges on which peace
was based have not been maintained; the noble declarations made by the
Entente during the War have been forgotten; forgotten all the solemn
collective pledges; forgotten and disregarded Wilson's proclamations
which, without being real contracts or treaties, were something far
more solemn and binding, a pledge taken before the whole world at its
most tragic hour to give the enemy a guarantee of justice.

Without expressing any opinion on the treaties it cannot be denied
that the manner in which they have been applied has been even worse.
For the first time in civilized Europe, not during the War, when
everything was permissible in the supreme interests of defence, but
now that the War is over, the Entente Powers, though maintaining
armies more numerous than ever, for which the vanquished must pay,
have occupied German territories, inhabited by the most cultured,
progressive and technically advanced populations in the world, as an
insult and a slight, with coloured troops, men from darkest and most
barbarous Africa, to act as defenders of the rights of civilization
and to maintain the law and order of democracy.




III

THE PEACE TREATIES--THEIR ORIGIN AND AIMS