the territory of Memel. The President of the Council made haste to promise that he would give requisite instructions to the Minister of War, but that functionary seems to have brought no particular zeal to carrying out these instructions, for military organizations, some of them equipped with artillery, continued to gather all along the frontier.

A few days later a veritable squadron of Interallied war-vessels lay in Memel harbor. It included the British Cruiser Caledonia, and the French torpedo boats Algérien and Senegalais, the dispatch boat Oise and the cruiser Voltaire. Meantime the Lithuanian insurgents kept up their action. After proclaiming the downfall of the regular government in Memel, they set up one of their own in the little town of Prokuls, between Memel and Heydekrug, and entrusted the presidency to a certain M. Szimonaitis. Then they tried to haggle with the High Commissioner, who put them off, and on the morning of January 15 ventured on a vigorous attack against Memel.

After surrounding the city the Lithuanian bands, in force and well organized, succeeded in reaching the centre of the city, where a violent combat took place around the headquarters of the Commission. Several were killed and wounded on both sides. In view of the superiority of the Lithuanian forces, the High Commissioner gave orders to cease firing. An armistice was arranged, and a neutral zone established between the French troops and the insurgents. But even as he took these steps, which were to hold good until the arrival of instructions from Paris, M. Petisné renewed his protest against the use of force and again asserted that he would maintain the authority of the Allies in the territory around Memel to the very end. The inhabitants of the village joined their protests to those

of the High Commissioner, and launched an 'appeal to the public opinion of the whole world,' in which they asserted that the insurrection was the work of the Kovno Government, that it had been carried out by regular and irregular Lithuanian troops, and that it was due to a movement of outsiders, not of inhabitants of the territory itself.

All this prevented Mr. Szimonaitis from coming to Memel to set up his so-called revolutionary 'government,' to endeavor to win over the regular functionaries to the revolutionary cause. As his endeavors had ended in failure, Mr. Szimonaitis had recourse to more radical measures. He set up a new Directorate and a new State Council. The latter was to determine the status of the territory. On January 17 the Conference of Ambassadors decided to send an Extraordinary Commission to Memel immediately, charged with the duty of establishing a provisional government and of maintaining peace and order in the territory by authority of the Allies. Moreover, the Conference addressed a telegram to Mr. Petisné approving his action in maintaining the authority of the Allied Governments in the territory. They also made representations to Kovno in order to recall to the Lithuanian Government the grave responsibilities incurred in failing to take the necessary measures to prevent the spread of the insurrection.

On the nineteenth the Government at Kovno replied, declining to admit any responsibility, and adding that since the Memel territory was not under its authority it had no material means of controlling the directors of the rebellion. It declared, however, that it was ready to recall from Memel its representative who 'had no authority under the circumstances,' and asserted that it was ready to exert its

moral influence over the rebels 'by assuring them that they would receive satisfaction.'

On the same day the President of the Revolutionary Committee, Mr. Szimonaitis, addressed a note to the British Government demanding the nomination of a new High Commissioner and the withdrawal of the French garrison. The Conference of Ambassadors decided to send the Kovno Government an ultimatum requiring it to use all its influence in order to withdraw the rebels who were in Memel, and to dissolve the provisional government in order that the Allied Extraordinary Commission might exert its powers and proceed to elect a provisional committee charged with the administration of the territory.

Public opinion will ask what we are doing at Memel and what French interests our chasseurs-alpins and our squadron are defending there. It would be easy to reply that our little garrison and our sailors represent not France alone but the Allied Powers who

signed the Treaty of Versailles. That, however, would be only half the truth and would lead to the question: 'Must France always be pulling other people's chestnuts out of the fire?' As a matter of fact, France is both directly and indirectly interested in the Memel question - directly because no other Power must watch so strictly over the execution of the Treaty as she, indirectly because the security of her allies is her own security.

The Memel affair is a stroke by Germany, endeavoring to weaken the Treaty of Versailles. Lithuania's seizure of the Memel district represents the overthrow of the last obstacle to practically direct communication between Germany and Soviet Russia. It is also the direct reëstablishment of German influence over the mouth of the Niemen, and Poland is deprived of an outlet to the sea which might have been compensation for the insufficiency of Danzig. Here the economic, political, and strategic interests of France are mingled with those of her allies.

POLITICAL affairs are highly changeable. Without going so far as La Bruyère, who compares the diplomat to the chameleon and asserts that all his endeavors tend merely to a single end, 'which consists in not being fooled himself, and in fooling other people,' we must admit that statesmen and their underlings reserve to themselves an

infinite diversity of implements to achieve their purpose. Sometimes this state of affairs scandalizes unsophisticated souls. Sometimes it even happens that the diplomats' purpose itself has been changed or altered. That is a more serious state of affairs.

Scarcely more than half a year separates the Genoa Conference from

that of Lausanne, but what a change in the attitudes of the various countries! At Genoa English diplomacy, as represented in the person of Mr. Lloyd George, strove to draw the different nations of Europe together by appealing to their interests. Enthralled by his plan, which was not altogether inspired by pure philanthropy, the British Prime Minister seemed to believe that he had merely to bring the representatives of thirty states face to face in order to see them straightway wind up all their quarrels and fall into each other's arms in a brotherly embrace. In such a hurry to get his congress together, he was exasperated by those who ventured to hinder his endeavors; and, since the Bolsheviki did not condescend to answer, with a plain yes or no, whether they would agree to the conditions on which their admission to the Conference depended, he made haste to announce that their silence was the same thing as an acceptance.

Unfortunately the gentlemen from Moscow did not understand things quite that way. They sought to win the recognition of Europe without troubling about its difficulties. That is to say, they did not want to acknowledge their debts, still less to pay them. Out of this grew a discussion that stretched through weeks and months, with the result that a question which was to have been merely a prologue to the Conference became its principal subject. To diplomatic communications setting forth conditions in Europe, the Bolsheviki replied with still other notes. Before they let anyone see their money they wanted some money given them. Their attitude was deceptive, their manner ironic; and finally in the guise of a formal memorandum they launched a Communist manifesto of the first water, which the newspapers of the world obligingly reproduced for them.

In spite of these pranks, Mr. Lloyd George maintained an unflagging good nature. He seemed to forget that he had set forth to the House of Commons the conditions to which Russia must agree. He granted the Bolsheviki concession after concession, and instead of coming to grips with their demands, which rendered agreement out of the question, he reserved his wrath for those who kept him from going to still further lengths and risking the European cause. He contrived to carry Italy along with him.

The French attitude, on the other hand, was remarkably consistent. Perhaps the delegation at the head of which M. Barthou found himself hesitated more than once on its path under the influence of such a skillful manipulator of men as Mr. Lloyd George. But back in Paris M. Poincaré was watching. He meant to keep the Conference faithful to his own programme. He anticipated nothing but tricks and deceit from the Bolsheviki, whom he regarded as incapable of meeting their colleagues frankly and openly.

The outcome showed that he was right. At Genoa, and later on at The Hague, the representatives of the Soviets were always evasive when definite answers were asked of them. They showed no other desire save that for getting money and at the same time stirring up as much disorder as possible in capitalistic states, where they could never feel themselves more than tolerated. The hesitaters grouped themselves about France; and, when the Conference broke up, the impression was widespread in Europe that it was well that a statesman with definite opinions and energetic character held sway in Paris as an offset to the amusing divagations of the British Prime Minister.

At Lausanne the Western Powers

presented a more united front than at Genoa-which - which is not saying very much. They reached an agreement on their Near Eastern programme September 23, and their delegates made praiseworthy attempts to establish a single front and support their position throughout the fray. But something must have happened, for the parts that they played were interchanged. It was England who held firm. No doubt the English delegates made a good many concessions; and, the frame of mind of our period being what it is, it is not surprising to see that those who had neither teeth nor claws for their own defense were destined to the sacrifice-I mean, of course, the Christian peoples who were regretfully turned over to the tender mercies of the Turks.

But there were other matters on which Lord Curzon had no idea of yielding, as the opposing camp speedily discovered. The French and the Italians, on the other hand, judged it expedient to yield the Turk every possible satisfaction. They gave up one position after another without even fixing a point of retirement on which they would stand firm; and, as if this were not enough, the official journals of Paris poured hot shot into the representatives of the Republic, accusing them of playing England's game and of not showing themselves sufficiently conciliatory toward the Turks. For a long time M. Poincaré remained sphinx-like. The French delegates asserted that he was in agreement with them; then he took sides for capitulation. On the last day, he telephoned directions to Lausanne to make every concession that the Turks asked for in order to ensure the signing of the treaty, but by that time, M. Barrère was no longer at the head of the French Delegation. He could not stick to the bitter end in a part which he thought humiliating.

The Ottoman delegates, novices though they were in the fine art of diplomacy, were not lacking in astuteness, and had long ago taken the measure of their opponents. They had nothing but contempt for Governments that knew only how to yield and yield again. Only in England did they see a genuine obstacle. The feelings that furnish motives for some human acts, friendship, gratitude, appear to have had no value in their eyes. They are, moreover, rigorously excluded from the political code. In the end, it was Great Britain to whom the Turks made up their minds to yield in several important respects. They gave up nothing to the other Powers, feeling sure that they could act as they pleased toward them. They were operating beneath the delighted eyes of their Bolshevist allies, who highly appreciated this way of dealing with the rest of Europe; and while the French, with special interests at stake, were ready at the order of their Government to hand over whatever advantages they had won, it was the English who refused to have anything to do with so dangerously mutilated a treaty.

Now all European opinion is in agreement on one point namely, that Lord Curzon was the great man of the Conference. He steadily maintained a dignified attitude and he remained consistent with himself. In order to maintain faith with his Allies, he refused the separate peace which the Turks offered him. There is a true statesman. One is amazed, on the other hand, at the constantly changing attitude of the French who, after having made all kinds of concessions, ended by undergoing a clear defeat. France is said to have deserved what she got but what a sudden alteration!

No doubt there is a great difference between one Conference and another,