comparison between the terms of this understanding, on the basis of
which the German nation had agreed to lay down its arms, and the actual
provisions of the document offered them for signature thereafter. The
German commentators had little difficulty in showing that the draft
Treaty constituted a breach of engagements and of international morality
comparable with their own offense in the invasion of Belgium.
Nevertheless, the German reply was not in all its parts a document fully
worthy of the occasion, because in spite of the justice and importance
of much of its contents, a truly broad treatment and high dignify of
outlook were a little wanting, and the general effect lacks the simple
treatment, with the dispassionate objectivity of despair which the deep
passions of the occasion might have evoked. The Allied governments gave
it, in any case, no serious consideration, and I doubt if anything which
the German delegation could have said at that stage of the proceedings
would have much influenced the result.

The commonest virtues of the individual are often lacking in the
spokesmen of nations; a statesman representing not himself but his
country may prove, without incurring excessive blame--as history often
records--vindictive, perfidious, and egotistic. These qualities are
familiar in treaties imposed by victors. But the German delegation did
not succeed in exposing in burning and prophetic words the quality which
chiefly distinguishes this transaction from all its historical
predecessors--its insincerity.

This theme, however, must be for another pen than mine. I am mainly
concerned in what follows, not with the justice of the Treaty,--neither
with the demand for penal justice against the enemy, nor with the
obligation of contractual justice on the victor,--but with its wisdom
and with its consequences.