CHAPTER XVIII

THE LEAGUE AND ITS MANDATES

SECRET TREATIES OR SELF-DETERMINATION

Ir Mr. David Lloyd George, then prime minister of England, meant what he said on January 5, 1918, he was uttering a challenge to the whole philosophy of modern imperialism as well as to the policy which his own Government had pursued up to that moment. In defining the war aims of the Allies he declared that the "principle of national self-determination" was "as applicable" to the German colonies as to European peoples, for the native chiefs and councils could be consulted as the representatives of their tribes. Applying the principle of self-determination to African and South Sea tribes was a relatively novel and certainly a revolutionary idea in itself, but Mr. Lloyd George added that the governing consideration should be 'to prevent their exploitation for the benefit of European capitalists or Governments." 1 Taken at its face value, this declaration would mean an end of imperialism for the German colonies, and once it had been applied to them, its application to other colonies could not consistently be denied. Self-determination and empire are irreconcilable foes.

Why the British premier made so amazingly radical a statement will be explained in a later paragraph, but first it is interesting to observe how diametrically opposed his utterance was to the policies hitherto pursued by the Allies. By a series of secret treaties and secret agreements the governments of the Allied Powers had arranged, in anticipation of victory, for the. division of colonial spoils. France and England had exchanged notes (1916) providing for the annexation of the former German colonies in Africa. France and Great Britain promised to Italy, by the secret treaty of London (April 26, 1915), "compensation" if they enlarged their possessions in Africa, the compensation being in the form of additions to the Italian 'Temperley, History of the Peace Conference, I, p. 191.

colonies in that continent. Moreover, the British Union of South Africa expected to annex German South West Africa, which had been occupied by the Boers, and Belgium hoped to share in German East Africa, which troops from Belgian Congo had helped to conquer. As for the German colonies in the Far East, Great Britain in February 1917 had undertaken to support Japan's claims regarding the disposal of Germany's rights in Shantung and the German islands north of the equator, “it being understood that the Japanese Government . . . will treat in the same spirit Great Britain's claims to the German islands south of the equator." France and Russia and Italy assented to this bargain. Thus the German colonies were to be appropriated, without reference to self-determination and without any thought of preventing exploitation.

Not only the German colonies, but also Turkey and Persia were considered legitimate spoils of imperialism. In March 1915 Great Britain and France had promised to Russia a portion of Turkey including Constantinople, and a free hand in northern Persia, it being agreed that the neutral zone in Persia should be added to the British sphere of influence, and that the claims of France and Great Britain in Turkey should be defined later. Next by the secret treaty of April 26, 1915, the Allies assured Italy that she would have Dodekanesia and her just share in the partition of Turkey, and mentioned the Adalia district of Asia Minor as being earmarked for Italy. FrancoRussian and Anglo-French agreements in the spring of 1916 assigned Turkish Armenia, in addition to Constantinople, to Russia; Syria, Cilicia, and a sphere of influence stretching eastward as far as the Persian border, to France; Mesopotamia, some ports in Palestine, and a broad sphere of influence, besides Cyprus, to Great Britain. Italy's "just share" was more precisely demarcated in 1917 so as to include not only Adalia but the whole southern coast of Anatolia and also the province of Smyrna.1

In sharp contrast to this official (and secret) policy of annexationist imperialism there grew up during the Great War

1 For the secret treaties summarized above see Cocks, The Secret Treaties; Temperley, op. cit., VI, pp. 1-22; Baker, Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement, I, chs. 3-4; Shane Leslie, Mark Sykes, pp. 250-8; Grannini, I Documenti Diplomatici della Pace Orientale; France, Journal officiel, Docs Parlementaires, 1919, Chambre, no. 6665, p. 415.

an opposing policy, which explains Lloyd George's speech and, more important, gave birth to the existing system of colonial. mandates. Opposition to imperialism was, of course, no novelty, as the early chapters of this book must have made clear. The significant features of the war-time opposition were the ideas of native self-determination and of internationalism. To trace the development of these ideas would be beyond the scope of this volume, but the anti-imperialist opinions will be of interest in explaining the origin of the mandate system.

1

In a vivid little book that was much read in the United States, Mr. Walter Lippmann as early as 1915 reminded a forgetful public that the real "stakes of diplomacy" were being ignored by pacifists. "They will not face the fact that the diplomatic struggle, the armed peace, and the war itself revolves about the exploitation of weak territories." The task of internationalism, he concluded, was to destroy the imperialist theory that a business man must rely on his home government for support when he ventures into backward areas-"This is the central nerve of imperialism, and our business is to excise it." The method he recommended was ingenious. European conferences such as the Algeciras Conference on Morocco, should not be disbanded when they have adopted a treaty but should "continue in existence as a kind of senate, meeting from time to time" and supervising the administration of the treaty. Ultimately there would be one of these continuing conferences or international senates for each of the sore spots where world crises originate, acting as a sort of "upper house"; while a native assembly would constitute the "lower house." Colonial administration would gradually become internationalized. Men going into backward countries would look to these new institutions, rather than to their home governments, for protection; there would no longer be need of armed interventions and crises; and competitive imperialism would be deprived of its excuse and its stimulus.2

In England somewhat similar proposals were made. Mr. J. A. Hobson, eminent economist and anti-imperialist, felt as Mr.

3

See P. B. Potter, "Origin of the System of Mandates," Amer. Pol. Sci. Rev., Nov., 1922; Walter Russell Batsell, in a book now in preparation, will cover this subject in detail.

"Walter Lippmann, The Stakes of Diplomacy (1915).

'His book on Imperialism is the classic indictment of imperialist doc trines and practices.

.

Lippmann did that the provisions of the Algeciras Act for international regulation of administration in Morocco indicated a direction in which a solution might be sought. He suggested that under the supervision of an international council an individual nation might be given the right of intervention and even of political control, in a backward country, under an express agreement to preserve the open door. This sort of proposal had firm historic roots in the Morocco negotiations of 1906. Secretary Root, in correspondence about Morocco at that time, had referred to France and Spain as "mandatories," and Roosevelt had used the term "mandate.” The name as well as the idea can be traced back at least that far, and perhaps something analogous to the idea may be found in the Berlin Act of 1885, placing the Congo basin under certain international restrictions, and prescribing, in particular, the open door. But to return to English ideas during the Great War, we find Mr. Philip Kerr, editor of the Round Table, speaking in 1916 of "trusteeship" and "tutelage" as the proper relationship between colonies and their possessors. Kerr and other British students interested in imperial problems-a group of writers often known as the Round Table group-were probably a very important link in the chain that leads to the mandate system.

2

The idea of international control of colonies was given greater popular vogue through the memorandum on war aims adopted by the executive committee of the British Labour Party, in August 1917. Condemning imperialism roundly, it proposed that all central Africa, from sea to sea and from the Zambesi to the Sahara-including Belgian, British and French colonies, and Liberia, as well as the conquered German protectorates-should be administered "by an impartial commission with its own `trained staff," under the authority of the League of Nations that was to be established. There should be an open door for international trade, and the natives should be specially protected against expropriation and exploitation. Criticizing this program of international administration as impracticable, the Independent Labour Party published a declaration, toward the end of the same month, suggesting in place of direct interna'J. A. Hobson, Towards International Government (1915). Cf. H. N. Brailsford, The War of Steel and Gold (1915).

'Chapter V in International Relations, by A. J. Grant and others. 'London Times, Aug. 11, 1917, p. 4.

tional administration a plan of delegating the government of· colonies to individual European states, "under the supervision of an International Commission.”1

In somewhat modified form these conceptions found their place in the declaration of war aims adopted by the Inter-Allied. Labor Conference which met in London, in February 1918. The representatives of labor organizations and Socialist parties in most of the Allied countries put themselves on record, in this declaration, as favoring the "frank abandonment of every form of Imperialism." The "colonies of all the belligerents in Tropical Africa" should be placed under "a system of control, established by international agreement under the League of Nations, and maintained by its guarantee, which, whilst respecting national sovereignty, would be alike inspired by broad conceptions of economic freedom and concerned to safeguard the rights of the natives." In particular, this system would "take account" of the wishes of the natives; it would defend their rights as regards land-ownership; and it would devote all colonial revenues to the well-being of the colonies themselves.2

Premier Lloyd George's speech of January 5, 1918, should be seen in this setting. It was made after the British Labour Party had been committed to its anti-imperialist platform. The clever Welsh statesman was endeavoring to dispel the idea that the Allies were fighting for the fulfilment of imperialist secret treaties (which had been published that winter). Yet he did not abrogate the treaties.

More sincere, but even less specific, was the principle laid down by President Wilson in Point Five of his Fourteen Points speech, January 8, 1918

V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the popula tions concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.

Between the lines one can easily read two conceptions characteristic of Wilsonian policy, namely, his earnest desire to prevent the peace settlement from becoming a sordid division of spoils, and his hatred-often expressed before 1918-of imperial'Ibid., Aug. 29, 1917, p. 8.

Ibid., Feb. 25, 1918, p. 3.