Page images
PDF
EPUB

would accompany him as the three orderly officers to which his new rank entitled him. Only one, the much abused but ever faithful Commandant Thouzelier, raised his hand. Joffre made no complaint, but, when all had gone, turned to the loyal one and, giving him a friendly pat, uttered his favorite exclamation: 'Poor old Joffre! Damned old Thouzelier!'

And by a paradox of fate the passing of Joffre, combined with the subtle manœuvre of Ludendorff, was to throw out of gear the Allied plan of 1917, leading France to fresh disaster, worse than any of those, save the first, to which his régime had contributed. In retirement, too, his help to the Allied cause was greater than in his activity, for his mission to the United States in 1917 was a triumphal procession, and as a symbol of France unconquerable he inspired Americans both with enthusiasm for the war and with a sympathy for France which for long counteracted the sources of friction.

Joffre's was not a character which lends itself to an extensive summingup, for his virtues were primarily pas sive. His passivity, like his silence, was carried to such a pitch that he was one of the greatest of human enigmas. This was an inestimable asset in a

world where the myth of the 'strong silent man' had not yet been exploded. Reluctant to believe that a man in so great a position could be as simple as he appeared, that his superhuman calm could come from insensibility, his silence from ignorance, even the Allied leaders who met him at close quarters felt there must be unplumbed depths in the apparent shallows.

That he had real strength, or at least solidity of character, is unquestionable, as is also his possession of a shrewd if limited common sense and an instinctive understanding of human nature. And because in a time of emergency outward impressions are more important than reality, Joffre's stolid calm and obstinate determination had an influence which offset many of his grave blunders. If his brain was as solid as his appearance, lacking in flexibility and imagination, his external effect on the minds of others enabled him to become the rock on which France held and Germany foundered. Only as the documentary records come to light and the need for moral prophylactics is replaced by the need for reality, so that future generations may profit by the experience of the last, can the historian come to a more penetrating verdict. Joffre was not a general, but a national nerve sedative.

OUR MEXICAN MISTAKE

BY *

In the last year and a half there has been considerable discussion of intervention by the United States in Mexico. It has been an intermittent discussion, arising according as developments in Mexico affected the interests of citizens of the United States. It has been, too, a rather passionate discussion, both in the press and otherwise - even more so, perhaps, than had been the case when, for example, in the years between 1913 and 1921 intervention was alleged to have been committed or to be inevitable. Regardless of their several interests and points of view, those persons in the United States who have publicly participated in this controversy have uniformly appeared to assume that it was some future act of intervention that was at issue. From no responsible quarter has there come the suggestion that a grave and unprecedented act of intervention had already taken place, not only seriously complicating the future relations between the two countries, but also establishing a precedent of great significance in the field of international policy. Even when the question of removing the embargo on the sale of arms arose, after the announcement that the United States would not extend the one-year 'antismuggling' treaty of March 18, 1926, it was still the shadow of some future act of intervention, or act tantamount to intervention (that is, the permission to export arms to revolutionists

I

in Mexico), that those discussing the matter seemed to fear or to favor.

That such an act of intervention was carried out in the last days of 1923, that, despite specious argument to the contrary, it was a step grossly ultra vires, and that, in its departure from an important and long-established principle of our foreign policy, it has prejudiced our international good standing - these propositions seem not to have been realized by the majority of even well-informed persons and to have been judiciously overlooked, for a wide variety of reasons, by the few who comprehended the facts.

One of the first important acts of President Coolidge was the recognition, on September 3, 1923, of the administration of Alvaro Obregón as the government de jure of Mexico. Since the assassination of Venustiano Carranza in 1920 by men who were presumably bent on promoting the interests of Obregón, the Government of the United States had refused to recognize the Obregón régime as lawfully constituted and internationally acceptable; but at length a long series of negotiations, into the origin of which we need not enter, brought about a conference of plenipotentiaries of the two countries at Mexico City. The conference had terminated its three months' work on August 15, 1923, by concluding general and special claims conventions for the disposition of all pending disputes. With the granting of recognition, the

situation that had existed prior to the overthrow of Porfirio Diaz may be said to have come again into existence - namely, normal international intercourse between two sovereign states, each exclusively responsible for the maintenance of law and order within its own jurisdiction. Yet four months did not elapse before the Government of the United States took it upon itself brusquely to upset this situation, by interfering directly in the internal affairs of Mexico, and assuming, in consequence, a share indeed, a preponderant share of the responsibility for the maintenance of law and order in that country!

This surprising development had a great number of antecedents which deserve the fullest exploration in the light of day, but to which only brief reference is necessary here. Shortly after the granting of recognition by President Coolidge, it became generally known that a serious quarrel had broken out between the principal candidates for the presidency in the campaign then in course. These candidates were Adolfo de la Huerta, the Secretary of Finance who had conducted the important negotiations at New York in 1921, preliminary to the refunding of the Mexican foreign debt, and Plutarco Elías Calles, likewise a cabinet officer of President Obregón, and therefore, in the absence of notice to the contrary, implicitly bound by all the engagements entered into by, or on behalf of, the Obregón administration in 1921-23. An open break developed rapidly, and within a few weeks both factions had taken the field. Although President Obregón supported General Calles, General de la Huerta enjoyed the support of sufficient military forces to begin early to get the better of his opponents. The military position and prospects of the Obregón-Calles faction became distinctly unfavorable, and

in the early days of December the triumph of de la Huerta was already being anticipated by impartial European observers in Mexico.

Apparently it was only in December that the idea took root in certain quarters that intervention by the Government of the United States should be resorted to if the Obregón administration could be saved in no other way. The form which effective intervention might take appears to have been uncertain until late in the month, about which time there appeared in Washington Ramón Ross, who had been one of the Mexican plenipotentiaries in the conference with Messrs. Warren and Payne during the preceding summer. As soon as Ross had seen the Secretary of State, a series of conferences took place between the latter and the Secretary of War; both cabinet officers, as well as other persons interested, conferred with the President. On the morning of Sunday, December 30, 1923, it was announced that the President of Mexico had urgently requested that war material of the United States Government be made available to him, and that the request had been granted. The Secretary of State permitted himself to be quoted as follows:

The Mexican Government has presented a request to this government to sell it a limited quantity of war material. This government has expressed its willingness to make the sale, in view of the relations between this government and the Mexican Government, which was formally recognized last September, and of the importance of the maintenance of stability and orderly constitutional procedure in the neighboring republic.

So lively appear to have been the expressions of protest on the part of the officers of the General Staff, and so unfavorable were the public criticisms

by Senators and Congressmen of both parties, that the administration found it necessary on Monday morning to issue a more detailed and authorita

tive statement. In line with the silly practice of avoiding responsible quotation of the President that has grown up in recent years, this statement had to be carried by the press as having been 'obtained in an informed quarter,' as the New York Times of January 1, 1924, characterizes the declaration. That it was issued by the President himself - even though internal evidence indicates the authorship of Secretary Hughes- was obvious, and indeed, a few months later, was so stated by the Washington Star (May 3, 1924), when discussing a sale of arms to the Government of Cuba, where an insurrection was getting under way.

The statement of December 31 laid

its emphasis on two points: first, that the Obregón administration had deserved well of the United States for its zeal in giving effect to the financial and political agreements of 192123; and secondly, that the sale of arms to Mexico was 'in no sense a reversal of the policy regarding the sale of arms as announced by President Harding in his letter to the Secretary of War,' of April 23, 1923. One of the most outspoken critics of the Obregón transaction, Congressman Fairchild of New York, had drawn attention to a letter which Mr. Harding had written in the preceding spring to the Secretary of War, in which the late President had said:

Referring to your inquiry for advice. relative to the sale of surplus arms and war supplies to proposed purchasers among foreign powers, I am writing to say that I hope that it will be the policy of the War Department not only to make no sales of war equipment to any foreign power, but that you will go further and make certain that public sales to our own citizens will be

attended by proper guarantees that such supplies are not to be transferred to any foreign power.

For a few days it seemed as if Congress might seriously debate the merits of the transaction; and Mr. Fairchild indicated his intention to ask that Congress specifically adhere to the 'Harding doctrine.' But this prospect soon passed, for two reasons. In the first place, the measure was given the approval, expressed or tacit, of the leaders of organized labor, most of whom were deeply interested in the success of one of the battling factions in Mexico. In the second place, the effect of the sale was already decisive, long before the arms and ammunition could be delivered to the purchaser. It was quite evident that if the United States sold arms to one of the factions it would follow this step, if necessary, by sending troops to use them. The significance of the sale was immediately recognized in Mexico and in Europe. De la Huerta's chances of securing foreign loans, supplies, or recognition of his belligerent status disappeared at once; even the morale of his military forces reflected the seriousness of the blow. From the day the sale was announced his was a lost cause.

II

In the second week of March, 1924, the War Department announced that

1 Not all the labor leaders in Washington, however, were convinced of the sincerity of the Obregón-Calles faction's professions of devotion to the workingman; and one man, perhaps the most thoughtful and perspicacious labor leader in this country at the time, told the writer later that his suspicion of what might lie behind the whole transaction was first aroused when an emissary of a cabinet officer in Washington not particularly distinguished for his labor sympathies paid him a friendly visit casually suggesting that a word in favor of this sale of arms might well be a helpful thing to come from the labor man.

it had sold 11 airplanes, 33 machine guns, 15,000 Enfield rifles, 5,000,000 rounds of ammunition, and other supplies to the Government of Mexico. On March 20, 1924, Senator Walsh of Montana presented a resolution calling upon the Secretary of War 'to furnish the Senate with a statement of the

particular statutory authorization by virtue of which he is reported to have sold' arms and ammunition to the Government of Mexico, as well as information on a number of specific points, such as, for example, the precedents for the sale and an indication of the obsolescence of the material sold. This resolution was immediately passed by the Senate.

The Secretary of War replied in two communications dated March 31 and April 24, 1924, which, together with such exhibits as he saw fit to furnish, will be found in Senate Document 104, 68th Congress, 1st Session. The reply falls far short of the Senate's request for information, failing, for example, to transmit any of the interdepartmental communications or copies of the instruments embodying agreements of sale, and like documents specifically requested in the resolution. After reciting the reasons advanced by the Secretary of State for the sale of arms, the Secretary of War went on to state that the question had been discussed in the Cabinet, which concluded that the Secretary of War possessed authorization to make the sale. The statutory authority for the sale was declared to exist in an army appropriation act of June 5, 1920, which reads as follows:

That the Secretary of War be, and he is hereby, authorized, in his discretion, to sell to any State or foreign government with which the United States is at peace at the time of the passage of this act, upon such terms as he may deem expedient, any matériel, supplies, or equipment pertaining to the military establishment, except food

[blocks in formation]

'In view of the plain terms of this statute,' wrote the Secretary of War, 'I did not consider it necessary to ask for the formal opinion of my law officers or those of other departments, and none were furnished.' Nevertheless, one of the enclosures is a long memorandum from the Judge-AdvocateGeneral, which recites all the opinions that had been given by his office subsequent to 1919 with respect to the sale of arms and ammunition to foreign governments. The memorandum sets forth at considerable length the situation that arose as a result of a limitation in an act of July 9, 1918 (40 Stat. 850), upon the sale of guns and ammunition 'to any other department of the Government, or to any foreign against any Government with which State or Government, engaged in war

the United States is at war.' This limitation, it might be remarked in passing, had been a barrier in the way

of the sale of arms and ammunition to

Mexico in April 1919, when the Carranza administration was looking for supplies.

If we may summarize the documents submitted by the law officers of the War Department, and, indeed, the letter of the Secretary of State itself, it would appear that, with the exception of the special case of Cuba, there had not existed prior to July 9, 1918, any authorization for the alienation of government-owned arms and ammunition to any foreign governments; that, by virtue of that war measure,

2 The omission of a verb (i.e., 'are' or 'may be') occurs in all prints of this act, (1) Public 251, 66th Congress, (2) C. 240, 41 Stat. 949, and (3) the United States Code (the restatement of all permanent legislation given force of law by the 69th Congress), title 10, par. 1262.

« PreviousContinue »