were bitterly disappointed over the peace treaty with Germany and over the Covenant of
the League of Nations. This may seem impossible when we realize how much the Group
contributed to both of these. For they did contribute a great deal, chiefly because of the
fact that the responsible statesmen generally accepted the opinion of the experts on the
terms of the treaty, especially the territorial terms. There is only one case where the
delegates overruled a committee of experts that was unanimous, and that was the case of
the Polish Corridor, where the experts were more severe with Germany than the final
agreement. The experts, thus, were of very great importance, and among the experts the
Milner Group had an important place, as we have seen. It would thus seem that the
Milner Group's disappointment with the peace settlement was largely criticism of their
own handiwork. To a considerable extent this is true. The explanation lies in the fact that
much of what they did as experts was done on instructions from the responsible delegates
and the fact that the Group ever after had a tendency to focus their eyes on the few
blemishes of the settlement, to the complete neglect of the much
larger body of acceptable decisions. Except for this, the Group could have no justification
for their dissatisfaction except as self-criticism. When the original draft of the Treaty of
Versailles was presented to the Germans on 7 May 1919, the defeated delegates were
aghast at its severity. They drew up a detailed criticism of 443 pages. The answer to this
protest, making a few minor changes in the treaty but allowing the major provisions to
stand, was drafted by an inter-allied committee of five, of which Philip Kerr was the
British member. The changes that were made as concessions to the Germans were made
under pressure from Lloyd George, who was himself under pressure from the Milner
Group. This appears clearly from the minutes of the Council of Four at the Peace
Conference. The first organized drive to revise the draft of the treaty in the direction of
leniency was made by Lloyd George at a meeting of the Council of Four on 2 June 1919.
The Prime Minister said he had been consulting with his delegation and with the Cabinet.
He specifically mentioned George Barnes ("the only Labour representative in his
Cabinet"), the South African delegation (who"were also refusing to sign the present
Treaty"), Mr. Fisher ("whose views carried great weight"), Austen Chamberlain, Lord
Robert Cecil, and both the Archbishops. Except for Barnes and the Archbishops, all of
these were close to the Milner Group. The reference to H. A. L. Fisher is especially
significant, for Fisher's views could "carry great weight" only insofar as he was a member
of the Milner Group. The reference to the South African delegation meant Smuts, for
Botha was prepared to sign, no matter what he felt about the treaty, in order to win for his
country official recognition as a Dominion of equal status with Britain. Smuts, on the
other hand, refused to sign from the beginning and, as late as 23 June 1919, reiterated his
refusal (according to Mrs. Millen's biography of Smuts).
Lloyd George's objections to the treaty as presented in the Council of Four on 2 June
were those which soon became the trademark of the Milner Group. In addition to
criticisms of the territorial clauses on the Polish frontier and a demand for a plebiscite in
Upper Silesia, the chief objections were aimed at reparations and the occupation of the
Rhineland. On the former point, Lloyd George's advisers"thought that more had been
asked for than Germany could pay." On the latter point, which "was the main British
concern," his advisers were insistent. "They urged that when the German Army was
reduced to a strength of 100,000 men it was ridiculous to maintain an army of occupation
of 200,000 men on the Rhine. They represented that it was only a method of quartering
the French Army on Germany and making Germany pay the cost. It had been pointed out
that Germany would not constitute a danger to France for 30 years or even 50 years;
certainly not in 15 years.... The advice of the British military authorities was that two
years was the utmost limit of time for the occupation."
To these complaints, Clemenceau had replied that "in England the view seemed to
prevail that the easiest way to finish the war was by making concessions. In France the
contrary view was held that it was best to act firmly. The French people, unfortunately,
knew the Germans very intimately, and they believed that the more concessions we
made, the more the Germans would demand.... He recognized that Germany was not an
immediate menace to France. But Germany would sign the Treaty with every intention of
not carrying it out. Evasions would be made first on one point and then on another. The
whole Treaty would go by the board if there were not some guarantees such as were
provided by the occupation."' (1)
Under such circumstances as these, it seems rather graceless for the Milner Group to
have started at once, as it did, a campaign of recrimination against the treaty. Philip Kerr
was from 1905 to his death in 1940 at the very center of the Milner Group. His violent
Germanophobia in 1908-1918, and his evident familiarity with the character of the
Germans and with the kind of treaty which they would have imposed on Britain had the
roles been reversed, should have made the Treaty of Versailles very acceptable to him
and his companions, or, if not, unacceptable on grounds of excessive leniency. Instead,
Kerr, Brand, Curtis, and the whole inner core of the Milner Group began a campaign to
undermine the treaty, the League of Nations, and the whole peace settlement. Those who
are familiar with the activities of the "Cliveden Set" in the 1930s have generally felt that
the appeasement policy associated with that group was a manifestation of the period after
1934 only. This is quite mistaken. The Milner Group, which was the reality behind the
phantom-like Cliveden Set, began their program of appeasement and revision of the
settlement as early as 1919. Why did they do this?
To answer this question, we must fall back on the statements of the members of the
Group, general impressions of their psychological outlook, and even a certain amount of
conjecture. The best statement of what the Group found objectionable in the peace of
1919 will be found in a brilliant book of Zimmern's called Europe in Convalescence
(1922). More concrete criticism, especially in regard to the Covenant of the League, will
be found in The Round Table. And the general mental outlook of the Group in 1919 will
be found in Harold Nicolson's famous book Peace-Making. Nicolson, although on close
personal relationships with most of the inner core of the Milner Group, was not a member
of the Group himself, but his psychology in 1918-1920 was similar to that of the
members of the inner core.
In general, the members of this inner core took the propagandist slogans of 1914-1918
as a truthful picture of the situation. I have indicated how the Group had worked out a
theory of history that saw the whole past in terms of a long struggle between the forces of
evil and the forces of righteousness. The latter they defined at various times as "the rule
of law" (a la Dicey), as "the subordination of each to the welfare of all," as "democracy,"
etc. They accepted Wilson's identification of his war aims with his war slogans ("a world
safe for democracy," "a war to end wars," "a war to end Prussianism," "self-
determination," etc.) as meaning what they meant by "the rule of law." They accepted his