PARIS 1919 by Margaret MacMillan Page B

had turned into enthusiasm for their vigor. Billy Hughes became something of a fad when he visited London in 1916; women marched with signs saying “We Want Hughes Back,” and a popular cartoon showed the Billiwog: “No War Is Complete Without One.” And then there was Jan Smuts, South Africa’s foreign minister, soldier, statesman and, to some, seer, who spent much of the later part of the war in London. Smuts had fought against the British fifteen years previously; now he was one of their most trusted advisers, sitting on the small committee of the British cabinet which Lloyd George set up to run the war. He was widely admired: “Of his practical contribution to our counsels during these trying years,” said Lloyd George, “it is difficult to speak too highly.” 22
    In the last days of the war Hughes and Borden were infuriated to discover that the British War Cabinet had authorized Lloyd George and Balfour to go to the Supreme War Council in Paris to settle the German armistice terms with the Allies without bothering to inform the dominions. Hughes also strongly objected to Wilson’s Fourteen Points being accepted as the basis for peace negotiations—“a painful and serious breach of faith.” The dominion leaders were even more indignant when they discovered that the British had assumed they would tag along to the Peace Conference as part of the British delegation. Lloyd George attempted to mollify them by suggesting that a dominion prime minister could be one of the five British plenipotentiaries. But which one? As Hankey said, “The dominions are as jealous of each other as cats.” The real problem over representation, as Borden wrote to his wife, was that the dominions’ position had never been properly sorted out. Canada was “a nation that is not a nation. It is about time to alter it.” And he noted, with a certain tone of pity, “The British Ministers are doing their best, but their best is not good enough.” To Hankey he said that if Canada did not have full representation at the conference there was nothing for it but for him “to pack his trunks, return to Canada, summon Parliament, and put the whole thing before them.” 23
    Lloyd George gave way: not only would one of the five main British delegates be chosen from the empire, but he would tell his allies that the dominions and India required separate representation at the Peace Conference. It was one of the first issues he raised when he arrived in Paris on January 12, 1919. The Americans and the French were cool, seeing only British puppets—and extra British votes. When Lloyd George extracted a grudging offer that the dominions and India might have one delegate each, the same as Siam and Portugal, that only produced fresh cries of outrage from his empire colleagues. After all their sacrifices, they said, it was intolerable that they should be treated as minor powers. A reluctant Lloyd George persuaded Clemenceau and Wilson to allow Canada, Australia, South Africa and India to have two plenipotentiaries each and New Zealand one. 24
    The British were taken aback by the new assertiveness in their empire. “It was very inconvenient,” said one diplomat. “What was the Foreign Office to do?” Lloyd George, who had been for home rule in principle, discovered that the reality could be awkward, when, for example, Hughes said openly in the Supreme Council that Australia might not go to war the next time Britain did. (The remark was subsequently edited out of the minutes, but South Africa raised the question again.) Britain’s allies watched this with a certain amount of satisfaction. They might be able to use the dominions against the British, the French realized with pleasure, when it came to drawing up the German peace terms. House took an even longer-term view: separate representation for the dominions and India in the Peace Conference, and in new