Fighting For Peace | Page 6

After careful

investigation and earnest effort, I reported that it could not be done at
that date. The first thing was to get the preparatory committee, which
would require at least two years for its formation and work. Toward
this point, then, with the approval of the President, I steered and rowed
hard, receiving the warmest sympathy and most effective co-operation
from Jonkheer Loudon, the Netherlands Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Indeed the entire Dutch Government, with the Queen at the head, were
favorable. Holland naturally likes to have the peace conferences at The
Hague. They add to the dignity of the country. The honor is
well-deserved, for Holland may fairly be called the fountainhead of
modern international law, and has produced many of its best
expounders, from Grotius and Bynkershoek to Asser. Moreover, as a
side consideration, these meetings bring a multitude of visitors to the
country, some famous and many profitable, and this is not bad for
business. So the movement is generally popular.
My own particular suggestion toward getting the required "preparatory
committee" seemed to its author to have the double advantage of
practical speed and representative quality. It was to make use, at least
for the first steps, of a body already in existence and in which all the
nations were represented. But there is no need of describing it, because
it did not go through. I was not so much stuck upon it that any other
fair and speedy plan would not have received my hearty backing.
But the trouble was that, push as hard as we would, there was no plan
that would move beyond a certain point. There it stood still.
Washington and The Hague were earnest and enthusiastic. St.
Petersburg was warmly interested, but showed a strong preference for
its own plan, and a sense of its right to a leading place as the proposer
of the first conference. London and Paris seemed favorable to the
general idea, and took an expectant attitude toward any proposal of
organization that would be on the level and fair for everybody. Berlin
was singularly reserved and vague. It said little or nothing. It did not
seem to care about the matter.
I talked informally with my German friends at The Hague. They were
polite and attentive. They may have had a real interest in the subject,

but it was not shown so that you could notice it. They expressed
opinions on the value of peace conferences in general which I am not at
liberty to repeat. The idea of a third conference at The Hague may have
seemed beautiful to them, but it looked as if they felt that it was lacking
in actuality. Possibly I did not understand them. That was just the
trouble--I could not. It was all puzzling, baffling, mysterious.
It seemed as if all our efforts to forward the calling of the next
conference in the interest of permanent peace brought up dead against
an invisible barrier, an impassable wall like the secret line drawn in the
air by magic, thinner than a cobweb, more impenetrable than steel.
What was it? Indifference? General scepticism? Preoccupation with
other designs which made the discussion of peace plans premature and
futile? I did not know. But certainly there was something in the way,
and the undiscovered nature of that something was food for thought.
The next jolt that was given to my comfortable hope that the fair
weather in Europe was likely to last for some time was a very slight
incident that happened in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, to which
small sovereign state I was also accredited as American Minister.
The existence and status of Luxembourg in Europe before the war are
not universally understood in America, and it may be useful to say a
few words about it. The grand duchy is a tiny independent country,
about 1,000 square miles of lovely hills and dales and table-lands,
clothed with noble woods, watered by clear streams, and inhabited by
about 250,000 people of undoubted German-Keltic stock and of equally
undoubted French sympathies. The land lies in the form of a
northward-pointing triangle between Germany, Belgium, and France.
The sovereign is the Grand Duchess Marie Adelheid (of Nassau), a
beautiful, sincere, high-spirited girl who succeeded to the crown on her
father's death. The political leader for twenty-five years was the
Minister-President Paul Eyschen, an astute statesman and a devoted
patriot, who nursed his little country in his arms like a baby and
brought it to a high degree of prosperity and contentment.
Like Belgium, Luxembourg was a neutralized country--the former by
the Treaty of 1831; the latter by the Treaty of 1867; both treaties were

signed and guaranteed by the Great Powers. But there was a distinct
difference between the two neutralities. That of Belgium was an