Moreover, M. Briand came to the Conference at considerable peril to himself. He was Premier, and in this office he had been doing as much as he seems to have thought possible to hold down the military trend of the country. His policy had been fought for a year by a strong party, intent on demonstrating that France was the most powerful nation on the continent of Europe, that it was her right and her ambition to hold first place there. M. Briand’s friends thought that he should not come to the United States. But, as he publicly said, he wanted to come in order to persuade the Conference that France was not as military in spirit as much of the world seemed to believe, that she did want peace, that her refusals to disarm came from the fact that she was still threatened by both Germany and Russia and must either have arms or guarantees.
M. Briand knew the line of argument that the Hughes program would awaken in France. This argument was admirably set forth early in the Conference by the semi-official _Le Temps_:
“I. Under a régime of limited armaments such as that of which Mr. Hughes has defined the basis, each state has the right to possess force proportioned to the dangers to which, in the opinion of all the contracting powers, it may reasonably believe itself to be exposed.
“II. When powers agree among themselves to limit their armaments they oblige themselves by that very fact even though tacitly aiding that one of themselves which should find itself at grips with a danger which its limited armaments would not allow it to subdue.
“III. It is not possible to have a contractual limitation of armament without there being at the same time among all the contractants a joint and several obligation of mutual aid.”
It is not unfair, I think, to say that when M. Briand came to speak to the Washington Conference on November 21, he was not thinking of the peace of the world; he was thinking of the needs and ambitions of France. Moreover, his mood was not the most conciliatory in the world. His pride and his pride for his country had been deeply wounded on the opening day of the Conference. He had found himself on that occasion set at one side. To be sure, he and his colleagues were given a position at the right of the American delegates, Great Britain being at the left; but when Mr. Hughes presented his naval program, France did not figure in it, except incidentally. The whole discussion was centered on Great Britain, Japan and the United States. France and Italy were set aside with the casual remark that it was not thought necessary to discuss their tonnage allowance at that time.