He though well of Lloyd George, whom Mr. Wilson went abroad
hating.
The Peace Conference was to him a personal problem. Peace was peace
between Wilson and Clemenceau and Lloyd George and Orlando.
Compromises were an accommodation among friends.
I never saw a man so utterly distressed as he was when President
Wilson threatened to break up the Peace Conference and sent for the
George Washington to take him home from Brest. It was as if his own
dearest friends had become involved in a violent quarrel. He did
not see the incident in terms of the principles involved, but only
as the painful interruption of kindly personal relations. Men speak
of him sometimes as the one of our commissioners who knew Europe;
and Europeans, appreciating his sympathy, have fostered this idea
by referring to his understanding of European problems.
But the Europe Colonel House knew was a personal Europe. The
countries on his map were Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and Orlando.
The problems of his Europe were Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and
Orlando. He knew what Lloyd George wanted. He knew what Clemenceau
wanted. He knew what Orlando wanted. That was enough.
His kindness of heart, his desire for pleasant personal relations,
his incapacity to think in terms of principles, whether of the
League of Nations or not, betrayed him in the matter of Shantung.
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