The Postwar Peace Settlement ••• 217Allies to build the peace once the war was won. He denounced secret
treaties, urged self-determination for all peoples (specifically including
those who had been under Ottoman rule), and proposed creating a League
of Nations to avert future wars. When he came to Europe to represent the
US at the Paris Peace Conference, Wilson was hailed everywhere as a hero
and savior.
But Britain and France, the Allies that had borne the brunt of the fight¬
ing and the casualties, were determined to dictate the peace. The defeated
powers, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire, could not
attend the peace conference until it was time to sign the treaties. Russia
(now a communist state that had signed a separate peace with Germany)
was also excluded. Georges Clemenceau, who headed France's delegation,
expressed a popular mood when he demanded that Germany be punished
and that France receive control over all of geographical Syria. David Lloyd
George, heading the British delegation, agreed that Germany should be
punished, but he also sought a formula to bring peace to the Middle East
without harming the British Empire. The Zionist (or Jewish nationalist)
movement was ably represented by Chaim Weizmann. The Arabs had
Faysal, assisted by Lawrence.
The King-Crane Commission
No one could reconcile the Middle Eastern claims of the Arabs, the Zion¬
ists, the British, and the French, but the conferees did try. Wilson wanted to
send a commission of inquiry to Syria and Palestine to find out what their
people wanted. Lloyd George accepted Wilson's idea, until the French said
that unless the commission also went to Iraq (where Britain's military oc¬
cupation was unpopular), they would boycott it. The British then lost in¬
terest, so the US team, called the King-Crane Commission, went alone. It
found that the local people wanted complete independence under Faysal,
who had already set up a provisional Arab government in Damascus. If
they had to accept foreign tutelage, they would choose the Americans, who
had no history of imperialism in the Middle East, or at least the British,
whose army was already there, but never the French.
The King-Crane Commission also examined the Zionist claims, which its
members had initially favored, and concluded that their realization would
provoke serious Jewish-Arab conflict. Its report proposed to scale back the
Zionist program, limit Jewish immigration into Palestine, and end any plan
to turn the country into a Jewish national home. Faysal and his backers
hoped that the King-Crane Commission would persuade Wilson to favor
the Arabs. Instead, Wilson was out campaigning for popular support for his