Brazilians in Paris: 1919

7/28/2019 Brazilians in Paris: 1919

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Copyright 2013 Teo Soares. All rights reserved.

BRAZILIANS IN PARIS:1919

BY TEO SOARESSILLIMAN COLLEGE

ADVISOR:ADAM TOOZEAPRIL 1,2013


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2BRAZILIANS IN PARIS:1919

PARIS:JANUARY 18,1919

The wind that blew from the Seine made frost cling to his bones. It swept over the

rivers banks and through the gaps in the wrought-iron fencea low-grade tornado that

gripped the men now exiting the Quai dOrsay. As Pandi Calgeras passed the wide

wooden doors, he felt cold, and he felt frustrated.1

Not that he minded staying with family. The Brazilian delegation had been

assembled in a hurry and proper lodging hadnt been arranged, so Calgeras had rented a

cheap apartment next door to his brothers, but this he didnt mindit let him see his

nieces, whom he adored.2 Nor did he mind that he had not been paid since crossing the

Atlantic. Prices had skyrocketed after the war, and Calgeras had footed the bill for the

winter clothes he bought upon arrival, but this he didnt mind. What had drawn him to

Paris was not money but the mission, the high chargefor which the Government has

summoned me.3

Nor did he mind that Olyntho Magalhes, his co-delegate, had proved

to be abysmally incompetent. Olynthos many fumbles included reservations at the

clearly third-rate Plaza-Hotel, but he was still a lovable man of good, if deplorable

from the diplomatic point of view.4

Rather, what weighed on Calgeras mind were the discriminatory conference

1 Like the remainder of the essay, this paragraph is based on documentary evidence: the Brazilians in Paris repeatedlycomplained about the weather in their diaries and telegrams. In this particular instance, the dramatic detailsthe low-grade tornado, the particular path of the windare based on my personal experience at the Seine in December of2011. While they are imaginative leaps, I felt they were reasonable and honest. Such leaps are made throughout theessay, but elsewhere they are indicated by modifiers such as probably, surely, and no doubt. Where such hedginglanguage is absent, the dramatized account adheres strictly to the footnoted documentary evidence.2 Joo Pandi Calgeras, January 4, 1919, and January 5, 1919, Dirio, in Pandi Calgeras na opinio de seuscontemporaneos (So Paulo: Salles Oliveira & Cia., 1934), 64.3 Calgeras, December 17, 1918, Dirio, PCOC, 61. Calgeras to Gama, January 27, 1919, Arquivos Histricos doItamaraty (AHI), 273/2/9.4 Calgeras, January 7, 1919, and January 8/9, 1919, Dirio, PCOC, 64-5.


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3regulations that Georges Clemenceau, the French prime minister, had just rammed

through the first preliminary meeting of the powers assembled in Paris. The regulations

addressed the procedures for the upcoming peace conference, divvying up the work

among the Allies. Therein lay the problem: unlike France, Britain, Italy, Japan, and the

United States, which the regulations labeled as Powers with general interests entitled to

major roles at the conference, Brazil was a petty power with special interests.5 Its

participation, if Clemenceaus regulations were allowed to stand, would be symbolic at

best.

The role of Brazil is great, and it might grow even greater, Clemenceau had toldthe Brazilians just that afternoon.6 How rich, thought Calgeras, coming from a man who

now barred Brazil from the most important international assembly in history. Was the

irony in this not obvious? In 1916, Woodrow Wilson, the American president, had

declared that the small states of the world have a right to enjoy the same respect for their

sovereignty as their larger counterparts.7 To now decree the powers unequal was to

betray the promises made during the war. Had thousands of men not stained Europe red

to protect their sovereignty? Had the Allies not spent millions of dollars to fight for a

world ruled by law and not by might? To defend the rights of nations? To safeguard their

integrity? Their dignity?

Had these not been the reasons Brazil had entered the war?

5 Calgeras, January 18, 1919, Dirio, PCOC, 68-9; Calgeras and Magalhes to Domcio, January 19, 1919, AHI227/3/3.6 Calgeras, January 18, 1919, Dirio, PCOC, 68-9.7 Woodrow Wilson, American Principles (speech), May 27, 1916, online by Gerhand Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=65391.


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4THE ENGLISH CHANNEL:APRIL 3,1917

After the blast there was silence. The roaring steam engines were gone. Jos da

Silva Peixe, the captain, had been asleep for barely an hour; the explosion startled him

awake.8 His account of the incident, now held at the Brazilian diplomatic archives, relates

that when he retired that night, the Paran had been sailing through the English Channel

at an easy pace.9 It was April 3, 1917, and the war in Europe was entering its thirty-third

month; Germanys renewed blockade of Britain, its third. Brazil remained neutral,

however, and the green and yellow flying on the ships mast were meant to protect it

from the belligerents.

10

Not so tonight.

11

The engine room was flooded; the lower deck, destroyed. One lifeboat had

already been launched into the water by the explosion, and the forty-men crew now

crowded into the remaining three, which hung from their davits over the ships side.12

Standing inside lifeboat No. 1, Jos da Silva hesitated. Roll call had shown five

crewmen missing. To leave them behind was be to betray his men, but the Paran was

sinking quickly, and he had his other men to think about, those who now pleaded to

abandon ship. The possibility that the missing crewmen were dead must have crossed the

captains mind, for when he finally cast off the lifeboats, he was certain he had been the

last man onboard.13

After picking up two stokers (they had escaped from the boiler room through

air vents and jumped straight into the sea), the three lifeboats pulled away from the

8 Magalhes to Muller. April 10, 1917. AHI 227/3/1.9 Magalhes to Muller. April 10, 1917. AHI 227/3/1.10 Domcio da Gama et al., The Neutrality Rules Adopted by Brazil, Annals of the American Academy of Politicaland Social Science 60 (1915): 147-154.11 Magalhes to Muller, April 10, 1917, AHI 227/3/1.12 For size of the crew, seeEstado de So Paulo, April 6. 1917.13 Magalhes to Muller, April 10, 1917, AHI 227/3/1.


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5Paran. Jos da Silva then saw red and white lights in the distance. Thinking them the

signal of a ship coming to their rescue, he prepared to steer the small boats in their

direction. That was when he heard the shells being fired. Once, twicethree, four, five

times, each shot a rolling thunder. These were proof, Jos da Silva later told Brazilian

officials, of a premeditated wish to do us all possible harm. He could do nothing now

but watch his ship sink.14

All through the night, the lifeboats churned in the Channel waters, rocked by

heavy waves and stormy weather.15 Though they had flares available, the men didnt

signal for help, as they feared that would attract more fire. It was almost noon when theywere found by a pair of French torpedo boats, which rescued two thirds of the Brazilian

crew. An English cargo ship later came for the rest. On port in Cherbourg, France, the

men reported the incident to Brazilian consular officials. One detail stood out to the

authorities: the crewmen in lifeboat No. 4 recalled seeing, as they fled the Paran, the

dark silhouette of a submarine gliding underneath.16

Three crewmen died.17 The cargo, 4,270 tons of coffee destined for France, sunk

with the ship.18 In Brazil crowds took to the streets. They were so enraged that police in

Rio ran additional patrols to stem potential riots, devoting particular attention to the citys

Austrian and German consulates.19

The Germanics have continued their savage practices, degrading civilization and

flooding the seas with the detritus of their crimes, wrote one newspaper in the wake of14 Magalhes to Muller, April 10, 1917, AHI 227/3/1.15 Magalhes to Muller, April 10, 1917, AHI 227/3/1.16 Magalhes to Muller. April 10, 1917. AHI 227/3/1.17 Notas e Informaes,Estado de So Paulo, April 7. 1917.18 "Coffee," Wall Street Journal, April 9, 1917, ProQuest: Historical Newspapers Complete,http://search.proquest.com/docview/129629466?accountid=15172.19Estado de So Paulo, April 7, 1917. Wherever possible, articles are cited by their headlines, but where no headline isgiven, the name of the paper opens the citation.


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6the attack.20 Another paper opined, We are no longer neutral. Our neutrality was shot

and sank to the seafloor tethered to the Brazilian flag that flew atop the Paran.21

What troubled the press, however, was not so much the loss of life and material

interests as the criminality of Germanys actions. 22 The particulars of the incidentthe

submarines disregard for the sanctity of a neutral ship, and the savagery conveyed by the

five shellsoffended in principle.23 TheEstado de So Paulo, the largest newspaper in

So Paulo and a perennial advocate of liberal causes, deemed the Germans, capriciously

forgotten of all the tenets of humanity and positioned against all the rules of the rights of

peoples.

24

These sentiments werent new. German disregard for international law had long

bothered the liberal luminaries of the Brazilian intellectual elite. Chief among these was

Rui Barbosa, the bald, bespectacled sexagenarian journalist and Senator from the

northeastern state of Bahia. In Buenos Aires, in 1916, months before Germany sank the

Paran, Rui delivered a speech that cast him as Brazils most avid proponent of the war.

By ransacking Belgium, Rui told his audience, the Germans had broken promises that

dated back to 1839, when the European powers signed a treaty recognizing Belgiums

right to exist. In 1914, as the Kaisers army marched east, the German chancellor

described that very treaty as a scrap of paper.25 Yes, treaties are but scraps of paper, Rui

said two years later in Buenos Aires, but so are contracts. And laws. And constitutions.

20Jornal do Commercio, April 6, 1917, reprinted inEstado de So Paulo, April 7, 1917.21O Imperial, April 6, 1917, reprinted in,Estado de So Paulo, April 7, 1917.22 O Brasil e a Alemnha.Estado de So Paulo, April 9, 1917.Jornal do Commercio, April 6, 1917, reprinted in

Estado de So Paulo, April 7, 1917. O Dia, April 5, 1917,reprinted inEstado de So Paulo, April 6, 1917.23 On other neutral ships being torpedoed: Notas e Informaes. Estado de So Paulo, April 7, 1917. On the shelling:"Brazilian Papers Demand Action Against Germany," St. Louis Post Dispatch, April 9, 1917, ProQuest: HistoricalNewspapers Complete, http://search.proquest.com/docview/578090551?accountid=15172.24 Notas e Informaes,Estado de So Paulo, April 7, 1917.25 Larry Zuckerman,Rape of Belgium: The Untold Story of World War I(New York: New York University Press,2004), 43.


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7Larger and smaller scraps of paper, but paper nonetheless. So that all human

transactions, all relations of society, all the rights and responsibilitiesto family and

country and civilization and the Stateall fabric of the rational world, in the final

analysis, amounts to little more than heaps of paper.26 To stand idly by as Germany

violated its treaties was to condone her assault against a principle fundamental to liberal

society: the rule of law.

But the matter at hand went far beyond the legal, Rui noted, for laws concern

people. Laws, Rui said, protect homes in defenseless towns; safeguard travelers in

transatlantic steamers; ward off mines from the waters reserved for commerce; shieldfrom torpedoes the fishing boats and hospital ships; shelter from bombardment the

infirmaries and libraries, the monuments and temples; halt pillaging, the execution of

hostages, the killing of the injured, and the poisoning of the drinking water; and guard the

women, the children, the elderly, the sick, and the unarmed.27 Germanys actions were

not only illegal, they were also immoral. If the neutral nations didnt join in the struggle,

Rui continued, Ill remain unsure of who will have committed the greater sin against

God, the greater evil: those who subjected the world to the horrors of war, or those who

let the rights of peoples fade from their conscience.28

His words soon gained immediate implications. On April 2, 1917, the day before

the Paran was sunk, Woodrow Wilson stood before a joint session of the U.S. Congress

and called for a declaration of war against Germany. The explicit casus belli weresubmarine attacks against American merchant ships, as well as the Zimmerman telegram,

in which Germany offered support to Mexico in a potential war against the United States.

26 Rui Barbosa, Problemasde direito internacional (London: Jas. Truscott & Son, 1916), 86.27 Barbosa, Problemas, 6928 Barbosa, Problemas, 111


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8Wilson, however, couched his request in more sweeping language. The present German

submarine warfare against commerce, he said, is a warfare against mankind.29

Stripped of its rhetorical flourishes, Wilsons message, like Ruis, was specific

and fundamental. Germanys actions undermined a basic human assumption: that we will

refrain from haphazardly harming one another. Unrestricted submarine warfare: the

phrase has been repeated so often that its meaning has become blunted, but its

implications for people at the time were real and frightening. It meant that nowhere in the

North Atlantic could sailors think themselves truly safe. It meant that when a ship set out

to sea, its return depended not only the skill of its crew and the good will of the weather,but also on the whims of the Germans. Encounters with submarines were, in fact, rare

the sonar wouldnt be invented until the 1930s, so underwater crafts relied on periscopes

to find their targetsbut the possibility of such attacks was itself an affront to the

covenants made between people. When Wilson said unrestricted submarine warfare

violated all restraints of law,30 his words had intensely personal implications to anyone

whose father or husband or brother made a living on the sea. When Germany sank the

Paran, one of the killed crewmen was survived by his mother.31 This is to say that the

attack invalidated another human assumptionthat parents oughtnt bury their children.

The Brazilian press reported on Wilsons speech favorably, and when news about

the Paran reached the country some days later, a tide of anti-German sentiment swept

over the papers. Editorialists at theEstado de So Paulo called for official actionif notwar, then at least a break in diplomatic relations. It would be honorable, one of them

29 Woodrow Wilson, Address to a Joint Session of Congress Requesting a Declaration of War Against Germany,April 2, 1917, online by Gerhand Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project,http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=65366.30 Wilson, Address to a Joint Session of Congress, American Presidency Project.31 Torpedeamento do Paran,Estado de So Paulo, April 7, 1917.


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9wrote, for our united states in the southern half of our continent to cast their lot, in a

fraternal alliance, with the United States to our north.32

A week passed before Brazil finally broke off diplomatic relations with Germany.

The decision was announced in a telegram sent by the Brazilian foreign minister to the

German representative in Rio, and his message parroted many of arguments raised in the

editorial pages of newspapers. What brought on the break was not so much the particular

incidentthe torpedoing of one steamerbut the implicit breach of the rules that govern

the relations between states. Sure, a neutral ship attempting to run a blockade was liable

to capture, but it was not liable to attack, and certainly not without due warning.

33

Notonly had the German submarine failed to contact the Paran before opening fire, it had

also refused assistance to the survivorsand, worst of all, it had then shelled the sinking

ship. The lost lives and cargo were regrettable, but they were made unforgivable by the

fact they were sacrificed without any previous action and against the expressed orders of

the Law of Nations, and with an abandonment of the principles accepted in Conventions

and adopted by Germany herself.34

News of the diplomatic rupture made even tiny towns in the Brazilian countryside

swell with excitement. In Taubat, 5,000 people took to the streets. In Porto Feliz, they

sang the Marseillaise until 10 p.m. In Amparo, the allied flags were paraded alongside

Brazils own green and yellow, and the towns 120-men reserve unit made preparations

for war.

35

Germany has managed to make herself so universally loathed that whereverwar is declared against her, the people feel nothing but joy and enthusiasm, wrote one

32Estado de So Paulo, April 6, 1917.33 Mller to Pauli, April 11, 1917, in The Brazilian Green Book: Consisting of diplomatic documents relating to

Brazils attitude with regard to the European war, 1914-1917(London: George Allen & Unwin, 1918), 29.34 Mller to Pauli. April 11, 1917, BGB, 30.35 O Brasil e a Allemanha,Estado de So Paulo, April 12, 1917.


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10newspaper. Now its our turn to break off relations with Germany, and here, too, the

general response is joy.36 But elation could also turn violent. In Campinas and So

Paulo, the windows of German businesses and schools were shattered with rocks.37

In Rio, celebrations took jubilant cariocas to the building of theJornal do

Commercio, where Rui Barbosa, the liberal Senator, was slated to speak. Rui, however,

was nonplussed: why had Brazil not gone further? Why were Brazilians so thrilled at a

mere break in relations while their brethren to the north had declared full war? Why,

gentlemen? Rui asked. Is it because international law changes at the equator, granting

one set of rights to the Yankees and another to us? Or is it because Brazilian lives areworth less than their American counterparts? Or because the sovereignty of a great power

is different from that of a smaller one?38

To stand idly by, Rui thought, was to condone Germanys encroachment on

Brazilian sovereignty, and this had sweeping consequences. If Brazil failed to take action,

then how could it expect other nations to respect the integrity of its territory, the security

of its people? War was necessary, said Rui, to justify our claim over our portion of

Earth. He went on: Only then will I see fulfilled, in my old age, the patriotic dream of

my youth, a Brazil that will resemble, as John Milton once wrote, a noble and puissant

nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks.39

It would be another five months before Brazil finally shed the shackles of

passivity. The day was October 25, 1917, and the immediate casus belli was the sinking

36 Cartas do Rio,Estado de So Paulo, April 12, 1917.37Estado de So Paulo, April 13, 1917.38 Rui Barbosa, O Dever do Brasil (speech), April 14, 1917, in vol. 44 ofObras Completas de Rui Barbosa (OCRB),52-53.39 Rui Barbosa, O Dever do Brasil, vol. 44, OCRB, 57.


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11of theMacau, the fourth Brazilian steamer torpedoed by the Germans.40 The Chamber of

Deputies, the lower house of the Brazilian Congress, voted for war to the tune of 149

against one. In the Senate, the vote was unanimous.41 Were witnessing a rare

occurrence, wrote theEstado de So Paulo, the liberal newspaper: The people and their

government finally in absolute agreement over a question that affects profoundly our

greatest moral and material interests.42 And the people were indeed invested. At a

gathering of workers in Rio, one labor organizer cried, We must help ease the suffering

of our nation, lending our might to our country, shedding even our bloodif blood be

necessary to wash the crimes of the Germans against our national sovereignty.

43

PARIS:JANUARY 18,1919

The Quai dOrsay was not literally the French Foreign Ministry. Quai was French

for dock, as Pandi Calgeras probably knew; his mother, a daughter of the French upper

class, must have taught him so.44 Quai dOrsay was in fact the name of the wharf that

housed the ministry, on the left bank of the Seine. So beautiful did the river appear from

that location that artists sometimes assembled their easels by its shores to capture the

scenery.45

Probably no painters sat on the embankment that afternoon. It was January and

40 Wenceslau Braz, Message from the president of the republic to the national congress, October 25, 1917, in BGB,

88.41 O Brasil na Guerra,Estado de So Paulo, October 27, 1917.42 Notas e Informaes,Estado de So Paulo, October 27, 1917.43 Attitude dos Operarios Cariocas em Face da Situao,Estado de So Paulo, October 27, 1917.44 Antonio Gontijo de Carvalho, Biographia, in PCOC, 9.45 Thomas Girtin, for example, produced a couple of drawings of the Parisian scenery as seen from the Quai dOrsay.View of the Tuilleries and Bridge (drawing), 1802, accession number B1981.25.2613, Yale Center for British Art.Also: Girtin, View of the Palais des Tuileries and the Louvred from the Quai dOrsay (drawing), 1801-2, ID number11784, British Museum. For a literary description of the Quai dOrsay, see Stphane Lauzanne, The Mirror of theQuai dOrsay, in The North American Review 216:802 (1922): 323-331.


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12cold, and the trees that lined the river had been stripped of their foliage. What color there

was came only from the small boats that might have cruised the waters. This was fitting:

when Pandi Calgeras left the ministry on January 18, 1919, not even the Seine could

have bettered his mood.

Beady-eyed and moon-faced, Calgeras wore his hair swept back and his

moustache rigid.46 He was also short: a family photograph, taken on the stairs that led to

the Calgeras home in Rio, showed him struggling to tower over his wife and daughters

despite standing a full two steps above them.47 A carioca by birth and an engineer by

training, he dedicated his life to public service. Though younghe was six months shortof fifty when he arrived in FranceCalgeras was a long-time member of the Chamber

of Deputies. There, he had earned a reputation as a hard worker and meticulous orator:

his long speeches, delivered in his deep metallic voice, were often read full-length from

notes.48

Calgeras was an early addition to the Brazilian delegation. Domcio da Gama,

the newly minted Brazilian foreign minister, offered him the position in mid-December

of 1918, over a lunch meeting at the Foreign Ministry (known as Itamaraty after the

palace that housed it in Rio). The armistice had been signed a month prior, and the war

machinery assembled in Europe was finally winding down; the peace conference, just

gearing up. Even though Brazils contributions to the war effort were negligible, the

country had formally declared war on Germany, so it followed, logically and legally, thatthe country would have a hand at making the peace. The countrys invitation to Paris,

however, still hadnt come.

46 Calogeras em Versalhes (photograph), 1919, PCOC, 62.47 Calogeras e sua Familia (photograph), undated, PCOC, 21.48 Sertrio de Castro, Calgeras, PCOC, 27.


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13The great powers had already begun their own preparations. The British, for

example, reserved rooms for some 400 people at the Hotel Majestic. 49 Domcio learned

this from his ministers in London and Paris, who also told him that the preliminary

meetings, held before the conference, would be limited to Britain, France, Italy, and the

United States. Not even Japan would join them.50 The smaller nations would attend only

the peace conference proper and only to deal with matters of their immediate concern.51

To Domcio, this was unacceptable. The Brazilian public had been expecting their

country to play some role in Paris.52 After all, hadnt Brazilians entered the war precisely

to assert their sovereignty? How could they do so if Brazil were snubbed at theconference?

Domcio set to work. He instructed his ministers in Washington and London to

press his American and British counterparts for an invitation.53 At virtually the same time,

he telegraphed a roster of the delegation to Olyntho Magalhes, his minister in Paris, and

instructed him to inform the French government that Olyntho himself would serve as a

delegate to the preliminary meetings, pending only an invitation.54 His strategy, it seems,

was to present Brazilian participation asfait accompli.

Domcio had yet to secure a seat in either the preliminary meetings or the

conference proper when he asked Calgeras to represent the country in both. Calgeras

knew this invitation stood on shaky grounds, but he was nonetheless elated. 55 To a man

whose greatest ambition was to give everything (and theres so little to give!) to our

49 Magalhes to Gama, November 27, 1918, AHI 273/2/11.50 Fontoura to Gama, December 5, 1918, AHI 273/2/11.51 Magalhes to Gama, December 4, 1918, AHI 273/2/11.52 Gama to Ipanema, December 5, 1919, AHI 273/2/11.53 Gama to Fontoura, December 5, 1918, AHI 273/2/11. Gama to Ipanema, December 2, 1918, AHI 273/2/11.54 Gama to Magalhes, November 25, 1918, AHI 273/2/11. Gama to Magalhes, December 5, 1918, AHI 273/2/11.55 Calgeras, December 16, 1918, Dirio, PCOC, 68.


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14beloved Brazil, the peace proceedings were an unique occasion, he wrote in his

diary.56 There would be such lofty questions discussed in Paris! The world awaited

reconstruction, Domcio had told him as they ate. There were new borders to draw. There

were domestic economies to rebuild. There were war debts to pay and indemnities to

claim. There were Germanys colonies to redistribute and the Ottoman Empire to

dismember. There were treaties signed in Vienna, 1815; London, 1839; and Frankfurt,

1871to rewrite. And there was the League of Nationsthat ill-defined but weighty

issue, that golden apple of discord, that eventual battlefield where divergent visions of

Man and World Order will meetto create.

57

No self-respecting statesman could passup such an opportunity.

Yet a month later, as Calgeras exited the Quai dOrsay into cold Paris and

glanced at the Seineits shores colorless, its waters running no more or less fluidly than

the waters of any other river in the worldhe may well have wondered if he shouldnt

have stayed home. Domcios maneuvering had been successful, and the Brazilians had

been awarded a seat at the conference, but the whole enterprise now seemed like an

empty promise.

The question troubling Calgeras that afternoon was in essence bureaucratic. At

its heart was a single paragraph of a single article of the regulations voted by (or as

Calgeras might put it, imposed upon) the first preliminary meeting of the nations

assembled in Paris. It read:The belligerent Powers with special interests (Belgium, Brazil, the BritishDominions and India, China, Cuba, Greece, Guatemala, Hayti, the Hedjaz,Honduras, Liberia, Nicaragua, Panama, Poland, Portugal, Roumania, Serbia,Siam, the Czecho-Slovak Republic) shall attend the sessions at which questions

56 Calgeras, December 16, 1918, Dirio, PCOC, 68.57 Calgeras, December 13, 1918, Dirio, PCOC, 66.


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15concerning them are discussed.58

By itself, this clause was sufficiently problematicwho was to decide which questions

concerned which countries? Did freedom of navigation concern land-locked

Czechoslovakia?but it was made worse by the paragraph that preceded it:

The belligerent Powers with general interests (the United States of America, theBritish Empire, France, Italy, Japan) shall attend all sessions and commissions.59

Not only had the Great Powers arbitrarily excluded the smaller powers from debating

certain questions, they also excluded them from all commissions that were to address the

most important issues before the conference. While countries with general interests

would attend all sessions and commissions, no mention of commissions was made in

the paragraph about countries with special interests.60

Calgeras found this outrageous. Special interests? Nonsense! Brazilians had the

same general interests as the French and the British and the Americans: to safeguard their

citizens and their rights as a nation. Brazil had entered the war to defend its sovereignty,

to stake its claim on the world stage. The regulations of the conference squashed thoseambitions. The Brazilians in Paris, it seemed, would be little more than spectators, made

to watch as the Great Powers reinvented the world.

The preposterousness of these regulations leaps to the eyes, Calgeras wrote to

Domcio that evening. The great powers have cast themselves as judge and jury over the

interests of the smaller ones.61

This complaint was by no means exclusive to Brazil. Each small power had a

58 Preliminary Peace Conference, Protocol No. 1, Session of January 18, 1919 (minutes), in vol. 3 of Papers Relatingto the Foreign Relations of the United States: The Paris Peace Conference, 1919 (FRUS) , 172.59 Preliminary Peace ConferenceSession of January 18, 1919, FRUS, vol. 3, 172.60 Preliminary Peace ConferenceSession of January 18, 1919, FRUS, vol. 3, 172.61 Calgeras and Magalhes to Domcio, January 19, 1919, AHI 227/3/3.


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16particular casus belli to join the fight against Germany, but they all shared a very general

interest in their own sovereignty. When Georges Clemenceau, the French prime minister,

told the conference that the war had been a crusade of humanity for Right,62 when

Woodrow Wilson said that the fortunes of all peoples are involved,63 their words had

immediate and tangible meaning for nations like Belgium. It is because Germany had not

respected the rights of nations that some 60,000 Belgian men had died. It was clear that

the Great Powers had mouthed the words but hadnt taken them to heart or given them

real thought, Calgeras wrote in his diary. This situation is intolerable, and all other

delegates share in my sentiments.

64

Domcio, however, didnt agree. A challenge to the regulations would be both

impolitic and vain, he wrote in a telegram.65 That Brazil had even secured a seat at the

conference was an accomplishment; why jeopardize that position by launching a moral

crusade against the Great Powers? The regulations may even prove providential, averting

gridlock. And most importantly, Domcio wrote, bickering over these ideological matters

might compromise Brazils concrete claims, which are of more immediate interest to

us.66

So interested was Domcio in these claims that they would come to dictate

Brazilian diplomacy in Paris for the next five months.

SANTOS

:O

CTOBER26,

1917

A little pinkish mullatto, was what a close friend called Domcio da Gama.

62 Preliminary Peace Conference, Protocol No. 1, Session of January 18, 1919 (minutes), in FRUS, vol. 3, 162.63 Preliminary Peace Conference January 18, 1919, in FRUS, vol. 3, 165.64 Calgeras, Dirio, January 20, 1919, PCOC, 69-70.65 Gama to Calgeras, January 25, 1919, AHI 227/3/18.66 Gama to Calgeras, January 25, 1919, AHI 227/3/18.


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17Brle du soleil, another friend suggested.67

What caught the eye, beyond his skin, a shade darker than that of most politicians

at the time, was his hair: combed back and very shiny, the black strands very black and

the white ones cast of pure silver.68 Tall and slender, the foreign minister had a sober

elegance about himself.69

He had been the second Brazilian ambassador to the United States, which is to say

that he had been the second Brazilian ambassador ever; in 1910, when he assumed the

position, all other Brazilian representatives abroad were mere ministers. The

ambassadorship to Washington had been created in 1905 as a sign of Brazilian-Americanfriendship, and both Domcio and his predecessor had been handpicked for the position

by the foreign minister at the time.70 Domcios stint in the United States scored him

prestige among Brazilian diplomats, and also an exotic and quite complicated

American wife, as a colleague later wrote.71

Domcio had been abroad when Brazil entered the war. He returned to Rio in

1918 at the request of Rodrigues Alves, the newly elected president, who asked him to

lead the Foreign Ministry. Domcio, however, soon saw his position compromised: after

being elected, Rodrigues Alves fell victim to the Spanish Flu. The president died in

January 1919, only two months after his term was set to begin (he had been too ill to take

office), and a new election was called for April. When the Brazilian delegation left for

Paris, Domcio was in limbo, the cabinet member of a deceased president. Retaining his

67 Heitor Lyra,Minha vida diplomtica (Lisboa: Centro do Livro Brasileiro, 1972), 142.68 Domcio da Gama (photograph), undated, Academia Brasileira de Letras,http://www.academia.org.br/abl/cgi/cgilua.exe/sys/start.htm?sid=307.69 Lyra,Minha vida diplomtica, 142.70 E. Bradford Burns, The Unwritten Alliance: Rio-Branco and Brazilian-American Relations (New York, ColumbiaUniversity Press, 1966), 98-9, 141.71 Lyra,Minha vida diplomtica, 141, 143.


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18job demanded that he play politics. In the Brazilian Old Republic of the early twentieth

century, this meant one thing: appeasing the political elite of So Paulo and Minas

Gerais.

This was the era ofcaf com leite politics, dominated by powerful coffee planters

in the state of So Paulo and, to a lesser extent, by agrarian interests in the large (and

milk-producing) state of Minas Gerais. Brazils was an export-based economy whose

products included sugar, tobacco, cocoa, cotton, and rubber, but these were pittances

compared to coffee, harvested from the fertile terra roxa soils of So Paulo.72 On good

years, the state produced 65 to seventy percent of the countrys coffee, and dutiesleveraged on So Paulos exports accounted for thirty to forty percent of the federal

governments revenue.73 This translated into political leverage: out of the eleven

presidential contests held between 1894 and 1930, six were taken by men from So

Paulo. (Rodrigues Alves himself had been apaulista governor). Another three went to

mineiros.74

The oligarchs institutionalized their political machinery as regional parties,

namely the Partido Republicano Paulista (PRP) and the Partido Republicano Mineiro

(PRM).75 National parties waxed and waned onto the political scene, but they amounted

to little more than coalitions of their regional counterparts.76 In each national contest, the

PRP and PRM colluded to nominate an official candidate, and together they provided

the votes to see their man into office. Suffrage was not tied to property, being extended to

72 William Glade, Latin America and the international economy, 1870-1914, in The Cambridge History of Latin

America Vol. IV, ed. Leslie Bethell (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986).73 E. Bradford Burns,A History of Brazil (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 263.74 Boris Fausto, Society and Politics, inBrazil: Empire and Republic, 1822-1930, ed. Leslie Bethell (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1989), 272.75 Fausto, Society and Politics, 270-1.76 Fausto, Society and Politics, 266.


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19all literate males over 21, but given that literacy rates hovered between 15 and 25 percent,

turnout was perennially low. In 1922, for example, the tallied votes corresponded to 1.9

percent of the population.77 This is to say that national politics reflected not popular

sentiment but the whims of the oligarchs.

Domcio da Gama took the Foreign Ministry hoping to remain aloof from

domestic politics, but surely he understood the mechanics of power in Rio.78 Brazil, he

knew, had entered the Great War with the blessing of the paulista coffee growers; when

Congress voted for war on October 26, 1917, the states coffee exchange in Santos passed

a resolution supporting the governments decision.

79

Now that the war was over, theinterests of the So Paulo planters probably occupied Domcios mind.

First there was the money owed for Brazilian coffee sold to Germany. At the time

the war began, 64,000 tons of coffee belonging to So Paulo had been stored in Hamburg

and Bremen. Another 48,000 tons were stored in Antwerp, which was itself soon

occupied by Germany. Fearing the German government might confiscate the coffeeit

had entered the country under the auspices of a British firm, technically making it enemy

contrabandthe Brazilian government intervened on So Paulos behalf and brokered a

deal: instead of seizing the coffee, the German government would buy it, and the total

sum of the sale, roughly 90 million Marks, would be deposited in the Bank of

Bleichrder, in Berlin.80

What appeared to be a straightforward transaction was made more interesting bythe fact that Germany subsequently embargoed the money. This was problematic for

77 Fausto, Society and Politics, 279.78 Lyra,Minha vida diplomtica,145.79 A bolsa official de caf approva um voto de apoio ao governo, Estado de So Paulo, October 27, 1917.80 Dossier, AHI 273/2/11.


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20obvious reasonsaccess to ones own deposits is a basic tenet of bankingbut also

because the coffee had been originally shipped to Europe as collateral for loans issued by

British and French lenders. Making matters worse was the fact that the interest rate on the

90 million Marks sitting in the Bleichrder accounts was lower than the interest rate on

the original loans.81 Had So Paulo been able to withdraw the money, it might have been

able to pay its creditors in London and Paris, but since Berlin had proved uncooperative,

the interest on the British and French loans had mounted. By 1918, it had been mounting

for nearly four years.

The first Brazilian objective in Paris, then, was to guarantee So Paulos money.This must have seemed simple compared to the countrys second concrete claim:

securing ownership of the German merchant ships seized by Brazil two years prior.

There were 46 of them, formerly bearing names like Prussia, Steiermark, and

Frida Wrmann, but now sailing as Cabedello, Camam, andMacap.82 They had been

stationed in Brazil on June 2, 1917, when the Brazilian president signed a decree

requisitioning all German merchant ships anchored in the Republics ports.83 Though

urgently necessary, the president told Congress, his measure was without any notion

of confiscation, which is repugnant to the spirit of our legislation.84 Be that as it may: by

the evening of June 3, 1917, all German ships anchored in Rio had been boarded by

Brazilian crews. As the green and yellow climbed their masts, cheers erupted from

crowds on land and sailors in nearby boats.

85

In one fell swoop, Brazil increased the size

81 Dossier, AHI 273/2/11.82 Relao especificada dos vapores que eram allemes em junho de 1917 e requisitados pelo Brasil, AHI 273/2/11.83 Wenceslau Braz, June 2, 1917, AHI 321/1/1384 Wenceslau Braz, address to congress, May 26, 1917, in BGB, 41-2.85 Dossier, AHI 273/2/11. Brasil e Allemanha,Estado de So Paulo, June 3, 1917.


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21of its merchant navy by roughly seventy percent.86

The confiscationor requisitionof the ships was timely. With German

submarines circling the North Atlantic, the European powers were hesitant to risk their

ships in trips for non-essential imports, like coffee. Brazil, with its small merchant navy,

had always relied on European vessels to move its product, but by 1917, the number of

foreign ships docking at Brazilian ports had fallen by sixty percent. 87

France, in particular, had entertained an embargo on import of Brazilian coffee as

early as December of 1916. The country already had two years worth of the stuff in

storage, said a member of the French parliament at the time. Why not follow Britainsexample and embargo the product altogether? Not only would this free up shipping, it

would also prevent gold from leaving French vaults, shoring up the Franc vis--vis other

currencies.88 The French legislature took up the question, and by March 1917, it had

banned all foreign trade, save merchandise purchased by the state or exempted by special

arrangement.89 Brazilian coffee fell under the latter category, to be freely imported until

June of 1917. The French government pledged to renew the exemption thereafterbut

only on the condition that the coffee be transported aboard Brazilian ships.90 Should they

fall prey to German submarines, all the French would lose was the coffee.

So it wasnt long after the Brazilian flags were hoisted up the masts of the

German ships that the Foreign Ministry leased thirty of them to France. In exchange, the

French government agreed to buy 2 million bags of coffee (some 130,000 tons), as well86 Based on tonnage. In July 1916, Brazil owned 169 merchant vessels for a total of 297,800. The 46 captured shipsweighed in at 216,000 tons. Figures from Eugenio Vargas Garcia, O Brasil e a Liga das Naes (1919-1926): vencerou no perder (Porto Alegre: Editora da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, 2000), 40-1.87 Bill Albert, South America and the First World War: The Impact of the War on Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Chile(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 40-5, 79.88 Magalhes to Mller, December 2, 1916, AHI 227/3/1.89 Magalhes to Mller, March 26, 1917, AHI 227/3/1.90 Magalhes to Mller, April 4, 1917, AHI 227/3/1.


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22as 100 million Francs worth of other Brazilian goods, all of which would be transported

aboard the thirty leased vessels.91 It was an ideal arrangement: it ensured the French

would continue to import Brazilian coffee (no doubt appeasing the caf com leite

oligarchs), and it augmented the transport capabilities of the Allies, who needed to ferry

food and soldiers from America to Europe. The American ambassador in Rio was himself

jockeying for use of the requisitioned ships, but given the urgent need for these vessels

in the North Atlantic, he happily deferred to the French.92

As the war wound to a close, however, questions arose as to the legality of

Brazils actions. No one seemed to know what to label the German ships. They were notspoils of war, for Brazil was not a belligerent when their seizure occurred. (True, Rio had

revoked neutrality in the conflict, but it had neither taken part in hostilities nor aided one

side or the other, so according to international law, it remained neutral by default.93)

Making matters worse was the language chosen by the president when he addressed

Congress on the matter. The ships, he had insisted, werent confiscated; they were

requisitioned, a measure based upon the principles of the Convention signed at The

Hague on October 18, 1907.94 This meant nothing: on October 18, 1907, no fewer than

thirteen conventions were signed at The Hague, and five of them dealt with ships and

naval warfare.95 It seemed, however, that he was invoking Convention V, which held that

a neutral state might use a belligerents property to the extent that it is absolutely

necessary.

96

Accordingly, the president had told Congress that requisitioning the

91 Contrat daffretement au gouvernement franais de navires du Lloyd Brsilien, December 3, 1917, AHI 273/2/11.92 Morgan to Peanha, November 2, 1917, AHI 273/2/11.93 Dossier, AHI 273/2/11.94 Wenceslau Braz, address to congress, May 26, 1917, in BGB, 42.95 Dossier, AHI 273/2/11.96 This, in fact, was the assumption made by the official compiling the dossier. Dossier, AHI 273/2/11. ConventionV: Respecting the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers and Persons in Case of War on Land, The Hague, 18 October


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24well, the questions on the mind of Epitcio Pessoa as he crossed the Atlantic on his way

to Paris.

RIO DE JANEIRO:DECEMBER 22,1918

Epitcio had been no ones first choice to head the Brazilian delegation at the

conference.

Public consensus held that the post would go to Rui Barbosa, the liberal senator

from Bahia.100 He was an obvious candidate, having been among the most enthusiastic

supporters of the war. Further, he had a proven diplomatic record: in 1907, Rui hadserved as the Brazilian delegate to the Second Hague Conference, where he had argued

so zealously for liberal principles that Brazilian newspapers later dubbed him Eagle of

the Hague.101 Particularly noteworthy had been his stance on a project for an

International Court of Justice. The 17-nation court would permanently sit nine major

powers, while the rest of the world was to take turns on the remaining eight seats, each

countrys tenure determined according to a three-tiered classification system that

relegated Brazil to the bottom-most tier.102 Sovereignty is absolute and knows no

classification, an outraged Rui had told the general assembly at The Hague.103 His vocal

opposition to the project had galvanized other second- and third-tiered nations, whose

delegates staunchly backed his challenge to the major powers. The debate in 1907 had

ended in a stalemate, itself a victory for Brazil.

104

Over a decade later, on December 3, 1918, Rodrigues Alves, the ailing Brazilian

100 Vargas Garcia, O Brasil e a Liga das Naes, 29.101 Notcias Diversas,Estado de So Paulo, December 12, 1909.102 Burns, Unwritten Alliance, 121-122.103 Rui Barbosa quoted in Burns, Unwritten Alliance, 124.104 Burns, Unwritten Alliance, 126.


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25president, formally invited Rui Barbosa to head the Brazilian delegation to Paris. 105 Rui,

however, declined. The invitation, he wrote in a letter to the president, came too late,

arriving at Ruis doorstep on December 5.106 In order to get to Paris in time for the

conference, Rui would need to depart immediately, and this left no time to prepare. But

the invitation was also late in another sense: it arrived after theJornal do Commercio, an

occasional mouthpiece for the federal government, implied that Domcio da Gama would

head the Brazilian delegation in his capacity as foreign minister.107 This slighted Rui.

For four years now this war has demanded, almost exclusively, my every effort,

imposing itself before me as the largest human movement in all of history, he wrote. Imust confess I had entertained, briefly, the hope that it would fall on my shoulders to

speak for Brazil.108 That Domcio had been named before him, even if unofficially,

must have so spited Rui that he refused to accept the position. 109

Domcio later said he had nothing to do with the story in theJornal do

Commercio, but he did, in fact, have his own designs for the Brazilian delegation.110 A

colleague at the Foreign Ministry wrote that Domcio had entertained the idea of heading

the delegation ever since accepting the invitation to take over the Itamaraty.111 Domcio

had also been laboring under the assumption that the British and the Americans were

sending their foreign ministers to the conference, and he felt the Brazilians should follow

suit. And as the former ambassador to the United States, Domcio was well acquainted

105 Vargas Garcia, O Brasil e a Liga das Naes, 29, note 13.106 Barbosa to Alves, December 8, 1818, reproduced inEstado de So Paulo, December 13, 1918.107 Varias, November 24, 1918,Jornal do Commercio, quoted in Barbosa to Alves, December 8, 1818, itselfreproduced inEstado de So Paulo, December 13, 1918. See also Rui Barbosa, O Caso Internacional (speech), April4, 1919, in OCRB, vol. 46, book 1, 220-2.108 Barbosa to Alves, December 8, 1818, reproduced inEstado de So Paulo, December 13, 1918.109 Barbosa, O Caso Internacional, OCRB, vol. 46, 220.110 Barbosa to Alves. December 8, 1818, reproduced inEstado de So Paulo, December 13, 1918.111 Lyra,Minha vida diplomtica,157.


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26with several of the American players in Paris.112 Surely his contacts would serve him well

in the politicking of the conference.113

But Domcio, too, would be barred from Paris. As the conference neared, the

press grew impatient at the uncertain composition of the Brazilian delegation, blaming

Domcio for the whole affair. Like never before, wrote theEstado de So Paulo,

Brazil seems inert, or else floundering, disoriented, as though in shadows. It went on:

Sources close to the Itamaraty tell us that the foreign minister himself hasresolved to go to Europe, heading the Brazilian delegation. And those news,which at first were only rumors, now gain greater currency, gain weight, all to thepalpablewhy not say it?to the palpable disgust of the general opinion. We

welcomed our old ambassador in Washington when he was appointed to theforeign ministry; and, for that very reason, we refuse to admit that his first act inoffice is a disservice to Brazil, for such is Ruy Barbosas exclusion from a postthat, unquestionably, is his by a consensus of the people.114

Rui had not even been invited when this story ran, but it didnt matter: public opinion

was already decidedly against Domcio.115 That same day, the foreign minister

telegraphed Washington to say he wouldnt attend the conference for reasons of internal

politics.

116

The delegation, therefore, remained without a head. Then, three days before

Christmas, Domcio da Gama paid a house visit to Epitcio Pessoa, a Senator from the

northeastern state of Paraba.117 If only Epitcio spoke better English (an observer in Paris

remarked he understood it imperfectly, if at all), he would have been the perfect man

for the post.118 Fifty-four at the time, Epitcio wore his hair swept sideways and his

112 Epitcio to Gama, February 7, 1919, AHI 273/2/9.113 Lyra,Minha vida diplomtica, 157.114 O Brasil e a Paz,Estado de So Paulo, December 3, 1918.115 Another scathing editorial: As interinidades, o Sr. Domicio, e a Conferencia da Paz, Estado de So Paulo,December 12, 1918.116 Magalhes to Gama, December 3, 1918, AHI 235/4/4.117 Conferencia do Sr. Epitacio Pessoa com o Ministro do Exterior, Estado de So Paulo, December 23, 1918.118 David Hunter Miller, The Drafting of the Covenant(New York: G.P. Putnams Sons, 1928), vol. 1, 125.


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27moustache thick, so it bristled against his lower lip; in photographs, the upturned tips of

his handlebar give the impression of a perpetual smile. Though no Rui Barbosa, Epitcio

had the makings of a liberal. On the night the Brazilian monarchy fell, a 24-year-old

Epitcio was sitting at the house of the coups instigator and first president of the Old

Republic.119 Later, Epitcio co-authored the Brazilian civil code and served as both

minister of justice and attorney general. By 1918, he was a well-respected jurist and

public man.

A few days after Domcios visit, Epitcio boarded a transatlantic steamer

destined to a conference that promised to remake the modern world. Stashed in the hull ofthe Curvelo were supplies for the Brazilian delegation in Paris: 1,984 lbs of rice; 1,322

lbs of beans; 3,968 lbs of sugar; 992 lbs of flour; 551 lbs of coffee; 529 lbs of lard; 294

jars of fruit preserves; fifty jars of marmalade; 56 jars of jam; fifty chickens; one dozen

erasers; one box of Hotchkiss-brand staples; one Hotchkiss-brand stapler; 3 Corona

typewriters with ribbons; and one Remington typewriter, model 11-B.120 Onboard,

Epitcio passed his time hunched over one of these typewriters, preparing memoranda

about So Paulos money in the Bank of Bleichrder and the 46 requisitioned German

ships. He wrote these memos in Portuguese and translated them into French, but the

Curvelo reached Havre before he could have them put into English.121

PARIS

:J

ANUARY27,

1919

The European weather didnt agree with Pandi Calgeras, and neither did the flu

119 Michael Streeter,Epitcio Pessoa (London: Haus Publishing, 2010), 16-7.120 The list of items comes from three receipts, dated December 26, 1918, December 30, 1918, and February 14, 1919,filed at AHI 227/2/7.121 Pessoa to Gama, January 14, 1919, in vol. 14 ofObras Completas de Epitcio Pessoa (OCEP), 7. Pessoa to Gama,February 1, 1919, OCEP, vol. 14, 8.


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28pandemic that now swept the continent. By the time Epitcio arrived in Paris on January

27 to take the helm of the Brazilian delegation, Calgeras was already nursing the first

signs of an illness that would leave him bedridden for a whole month.122

It had been a trying couple of weeks for Calgeras. The regulations presented at

the first preliminary meeting had left him fuming. In this he was not alone. By January of

1919, twenty-nine nations were represented in Paris. They had been brought from places

like Liberia and Siam on the promise that they would have a hand in reshaping the

world.123 Now they were discovering that their participation would be minimal at best,

and they were growing restless.

124

Particularly outraged were countries that had bled inthe war, like Portugal, which sent 60,000 soldiers to the Western front, and Belgium,

which, in the wording of wartime propaganda, had been raped by the Germans.125

Calgeras himself met with several representatives from small powers. The

Conference, he told the Serbian delegate, has become a dictatorship of the five Great

Powers; the League of Nations implies the equality of nations, but in the Conference that

aspires to create it, the organizing principle is sheer strength.126

The rumblings of these small-power talks reached the Quai dOrsay, making

themselves heard inside the office of the French foreign minister. It was a wood-paneled

room decorated with faded tapestries, and in it, behind closed doors (and closed

windows; the room was often hot, but the French balked at any suggestions of letting in

fresh air), met the five Great Powers.

127

This Supreme Council was the effective

122 He first mentions his illness in his diary on January 23, 1919, and after a month-long hiatus, he resumes the diary onMarch 6, 1919, noting he hadnt written during February because he had been ill. Dirio, PCOC, 72, 76.123 Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919: six months that changed the world(New York: Random House, 2002), 56.124 Olyntho and Magalhes to Gama, January 23, 1919, AHI 227/3/3.125 MacMillan, Paris 1919, 57. Zuckerman, The Rape of Belgium.126 Calgeras, January 22, 1919, Dirio, PCOC, 70.127 MacMillan, Paris 1919, 54.


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29governing body of the conference, made up of representatives from the United States,

Britain, France, Italy, and Japan. Though Calgeras labeled them dictators, the men in the

Supreme Council thought themselves more analogous to a cabinet within a representative

system of government.128 The British Foreign Ministrys records coyly referred to these

meetings as conversations.129

On the Wednesday following the first plenary session, the topic of conversation at

the Supreme Council was the participation of small powers in the commission that would

design the League of Nations. Woodrow Wilson, the Leagues chief exponent, had

assumed that only the Great Powers would take part in the commission. They wouldconsult representatives from other nations, and they would submit the final project to a

vote at the general assembly of the conference, but the League itself would be designed

by the Great Powers alone.130

Lloyd George, the British prime minister, saw matters differently. The League of

Nations, however important it might be to the Great Powers, must be even more

important to the small Powers, since, if efficacious, it would constitute their shield and

protection, he said. This made sense: while the Great Powers could count on their large

armies and powerful guns, the small powers had no recourse but international law. Lloyd

George felt the Supreme Council should choose some smaller nations to join the

commission.131

Georges Clemenceau, the French prime minister, took this a step further. Indeed,

128 MacMillan, Paris 1919, 58.129 The English-language minutes of the meetings, prepared by the British delegation, bear headings that read either,Secretarys notes of a conversation held in M. Pichons Room at the Quai dOrsay, or Notes on Conversations Heldin the Office of M. Pichon at the Quai dOrsay. FRUS, vol. 3.130 Secretarys Notes of a Conversation Held in M. Pichons Room at the Quai dOrsay, Paris, January 22, 1919, at 15Hours 15, in FRUS, vol. 3, 679.131Secretarys Notes January 22, 1919, FRUS, vol. 3, 679.


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30the small nations should be included in the commission, but they ought to be allowed to

nominate their own delegates, he said. It was a matter of public opinion. Though he was

convinced that on these Committees the small powers would merely follow the lead of

the Great Powers, Clemenceau still thought it necessary to give them the idea that they

were being consulted.132 Lloyd George agreed: Clemenceaus scheme would give some

satisfaction to the small powers, who were beginning to complain bitterly at their

exclusion, the British prime minister said. They felt they were locked out, and they

ought to be brought into the making of the peace.133

Clemenceaus vision, with Lloyd Georges backing, won out. The regulationswere amended to read that, in addition to ten representatives from the Great Powers, the

commission on the League of Nations would include five representatives to be selected

by the small powers.134 A similar design was applied to the commissions on navigation,

labor, and war crimes. To the fifth commission, on reparations, the Great Powers

appointed delegates from the countries that had lost most in the war: Belgium, Greece,

Poland, Roumenia, and Serbia.135

Such were the regulations on January 25, 1919, at the opening of the second

general meeting. Surely the representatives of the Great Powers felt satisfied as they took

their seats that afternoon at the Quai dOrsay. They had concocted a scheme in which

they retained control over the conference while still offering a show of inclusion to the

rest of the world.That this scheme was in fact nave doesnt seem to have occurred to them. The 19

132Secretarys Notes January 22, 1919, FRUS, vol. 3, 680.133Secretarys Notes January 22, 1919, FRUS, vol. 3, 681.134Secretarys Notes January 22, 1919, FRUS, vol. 3, 682.135Secretarys Notes January 22, 1919, FRUS, vol. 3, 682-3.


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31nations being asked to elect five representatives had come to Paris to assert their

sovereignty; the very act of electing representatives was antithetical to their cause. At the

second preliminary meeting, Wilson, Lloyd George, and Clemenceau watched delegate

after delegate, from Belgium, Serbia, Greece, and Portugal, deliver speeches demanding

that they be represented in this or that commission. Even Calgeras, going against

Domcios orders, spoke: It is with some surprise that I constantly hear it said: This has

been decided, that has been decided. Who has taken a decision? he asked. We are a

sovereign assembly, a sovereign court. It seems to me that the proper body to take a

decision is the Conference itself.

136

Clemenceau was irate. Speaking on behalf of the Great Powers, he began, With

your permission, I will remind you that it was we who decided that there should be a

Conference at Paris, and that the representatives of the countries interested should be

summoned to attend it. I make no mystery of itthere is a Conference of the Great

Powers going on in the next room.137 He went on: We have had dead, we have

wounded in millions, and if we had not kept before us the great question of the League of

Nations, we might perhaps have been selfish enough to consult only each otherit was

our right.138 Even though they were not represented equally, the small powers ought to

be happy they were allowed to participate, and if they werent pleased with the

arrangementwell, they were welcome to nominate no one at all.139

This, of course, they wouldnt do. Two days after the general meeting, the SmallPowers gathered to select their delegates. Acting in concert, the South American nations

136 Preliminary Peace Conference, Protocol No. 3, Plenary Session of January 24, 1919 (minutes), in FRUS, vol. 3,190. Calgeras also acknowledges the fact that hes going against orders in January 25, 1919, Dirio, PCOC, 72.137 Preliminary Peace ConferenceJanuary 24, 1919, FRUS, vol. 3, 196.138 Preliminary Peace ConferenceJanuary 24, 1919, FRUS, vol. 3, 196-7.139 Magalhes to Gama, January 27, 1919, AHI 227/3/3.


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32secured representation in three of the five commissions. Uruguay would discuss labor,

and Cuba, navigation. As for Brazilit would sit on the commission on the League of

Nations.140

PARIS:FEBRUARY 3,1919

It is worth nothing that when Epitcio Pessoa arrived in Paris on January 27,

1919, the 1919 Paris Peace Conference had not yet begun. A proper peace conference

includes all the belligerents, the winners as well as the losers, and Germany wouldnt join

the Allies in France for another three months. The period between January and Maywitnessed merely a conference between the Allies and ourselves for the purpose of

agreeing upon terms to offer Germany at the Peace Conference to be held later, Colonel

Edward House, right-hand man to Woodrow Wilson, wrote in his diary.141 Yet the

preliminary meetings were not merely bureaucratic proceedings. Consider the issue of the

League of Nations: to have a seat on the League Commission was to have a hand on the

Leagues design, and to have a hand on the Leagues design was to have a hand on the

fate of the world.

At least in theory. As it happened, much of the work of the commission was done

by two men: Americas David Hunter Miller and Britains Lord Robert Cecil. Millers

boss, Woodrow Wilson, made a point of joining the commissionthe League of Nations,

after all, had been his pet projectbut his participation proved to be less thanworkmanlike. Gentlemen, he said at one meeting, I have no doubt that the next

generation will be made up of men as intelligent as you or I, and I think we can trust the

140 Magalhes to Gama, January 28, 1919, AHI 227/3/3.141 Edward Mandell House, diary entry, March 4, 1919, in Edward Mandell House Papers (MS 466), Manuscripts andArchives, Yale University Library.


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33league to manage its own affairs.142

Miller and Cecil at least once stayed up until 4:00 a.m. only to resume work at

8:30, laboring restlessly over the questions that Wilson would have rather leave

unanswered: Ought the League mandate arbitration in an international court? 143 Ought it

enforce sanctions to maintain peace? Ought it call for disarmament? Countless drafts

were produceda second Brit, Sir Cecil Hurst, would later join the effort, and Colonel

House, Wilsons advisor, made himself a key player in the proceedingsand different

answers were offered at different times.144 This, House noted in his diary, was the

making of the most important human document that has ever been written.

145

Epitcio, however, seemed disinterested when Cecil, Miller, and Hurst presented

their work to the League Commission, on February 3, 1919. He dutifully relayed the

drafts provisions in a telegram to Domcio, but he offered no opinion about them.146

Even the Portuguese delegate was vocal enough to earn a mention in Houses diary as a

stupid gentleman, but Epitcio remained silent.147 Only one issue troubled him: the

structure that Cecil, Miller, and Hurst proposed for the League. Article III of their draft

called for a two-tiered organization. The five Great Powers, whose interests included all

matters within the sphere of action of the League, would sit in an Executive Council.

The remaining nations, those with special interests, would be relegated to a Body of

Delegates.148

142 MacMillan, Paris 1919, 87.143 For the time they stayed up until 4:00 a.m. see House, diary entry, February 2, 1919.144 House, diary entries, Janurary 28, 1919, January 30, 1919, and January 31, 1919. Peter Raffo, The Anglo-AmericanPreliminary Negotiations for a League of Nations, inJournal of Contemporary History 9:4 (1974), 153-76.145 House, diary entry, February 3, 1919.146 Pessoa to Gama, February 5, 1919, AHI 273/2/9.147 House, diary entry, April 11, 1919.148 Pessoa to Gama, February 5, 1919, AHI 273/2/9. First Meeting, Held at the Hotel Crillon, February 3, 1919, at 2.30p.m. (minutes), in Miller,Drafting of the Covenant, vol. 2, 232.


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34Pandi Calgeras was still bedridden and didnt attend that meeting, but if he had

been present, he would have found these terms familiar. He had fought a similar battle

before Epitcios arrival, when the Great Powers claimed general interests and

monopolized the workings of the conference. Rui Barbosa, the liberal senator from

Bahia, might have recognized this debate as well, having encountered it at The Hague.

Given that Brazil was once again fighting for the cause of the small powers, one

newspaper wrote, it is a shame that Rui Barbosa is absent from Paris.149

Surely the small powers had a most general interest in the League of Nations.

Even Lloyd George had acknowledged that they had the most to gain out of a world ruledby law and not by might. Why, then, did the Great Powers insist on assigning them a

lower status? When Epitcio and other small-power representatives raised these

objections, the debate grew so warm that, after an hour, Lord Robert Cecil moved that

we pass it up for the moment, House wrote in his diary. They adjourned that night a

little before 11 p.m., without resolving the question.150

A week passed. The Great Powers knew they needed to open the Councilthe

covenant stood no chance of being adopted otherwisebut they were unwilling to

concede any more than two seats. Then, a day before the commissions work was to be

presented before a general meeting, Epitcio took a stand. 151 Brazil could not accept the

organization of the Executive council in the way shown in the present, he said in French.

(Though he struggled with English, he was fluent in the other language of the

149 A Ausencia de Rui Barbosa, O Pais, March 8, 1919. Quoted by Rui in O Caso Internaticional (speech), April 4,1919, OCRB, vol. 46, 241.150 House, diary entry, February 6, 1919.151 Pessoa to Gama. February 13, 1919. AHI 273/2/9.


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35conference.152) True, there were political considerations at playthe Great Powers had

won the war, after allbut it was neither equitable nor just that nations which were not

considered Great Powers should have a representation which did not amount to even one

Delegate per continent. In the very least, the Commission should adopt a structure

suggested by the Americans earlier in the conference: five Delegates for the Great

Powers and four for the others.153

The delegates from Greece and Portugal backed his proposal. Begrudgingly

Robert Cecil gave in, insisting that this decision should be unanimously supported

before the Conference by all the States represented on the Commission.

154

By the nextmorning, when Woodrow Wilson read the covenant at the general meeting, the language

of special and general interests had been expunged from Article III:

The Executive Council shall consist of representatives of the United States ofAmerica, the British Empire, France, Italy and Japan, together withrepresentatives of four other States, members of the League. 155

This was Epitcios first victory in Paris. In Brazil, however, the press was more

concerned with another issue being floated at the conference: the insertion of the Monroe

Doctrine into the covenant of the League.

Wilson began pushing the amendment after he presented the covenant before the

U.S. Congress. His Republican opponents worried that the document invalidated the

Monroe Doctrine, a long-standing tenant of American foreign policy that interpreted all

European forays into the New World as acts of aggression, warranting Americanintervention. In the view of Republicans, the League of Nations was antithetical to this

152 Miller,Drafting of the Covenant, vol. 1, 125.153 Ninth Meeting, February 13, 1919, at 10:30 a.m. (minutes), in Miller, Drafting of the Covenant, vol. 2, 301.154 Ninth Meeting, Miller,Drafting of the Covenant, vol. 2, 301.155 Preliminary Peace Conference, Protocol No. 3, Plenary Session of February 14, 1919 (minutes), in FRUS, vol. 3,231.


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36principle. No less than six European nations would come to sit on the Leagues Executive

Council. If that Council was to issue rulings on American countries, a Republican

Senator said, it would control, whether it wills or no, the destinies of America.156 If this

was the caseand it certainly seemed to beRepublicans simply could not endorse the

covenant.

Back in Paris, Wilson lobbied for an amendment to the effect that nothing in the

covenant invalidated the Monroe Doctrine. There was opposition, first from the British,

then from the French, both for political reasons, and also from the Japanese, who wanted

a similar provision regarding their protectorate over the Far East.

157

Several SouthAmerican nations, too, cried foul.158

The Brazilians, however, kept quiet. The minutes of the commissions meetings

show no comment from Epitcio as the amendment was introduced and later voted into

the covenant.159 This makes sense. Meddling in the debate would have been impolitic.

Epitcio needed the Americans good will to secure the Bleichrder money and the 46

German ships.

But his silence was also a consequence of a larger current in Brazilian diplomacy.

At the turn of the century, when coffee displaced rubber a the top of Brazils export

economy, the countrys diplomats co-opted the Monroe Doctrine in the process of

straitening ties with the United States, the greatest consumer of coffee.160 Pandi

Calgeras himself had described the Doctrine as an integral part of Brazilian foreign

156 Willam E. Borah, The League of Nations: speech delivered in the Senate of the United States (Indianapolis: TheBobbs-Merrill Company, 1921), 18.157 MacMillan, Paris 1919, 96.158Estado de So Paulo, April 7, 1919.159 Fourteenth Meeting, April 10, 1919, at 8 p.m. (minutes), in Miller, Drafting of the Covenant, vol. 2, 369-374.Fifteenth Meeting, April 11, 1919, at 8:30 p.m. (minutes), in Miller, Drafting of the Covenant, vol. 2, 381-383.160 Albert, South America and the First World War, 82. Burns, Unwritten Alliance, 146-159.


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38Commission, which sided with Brazil.166 Thus, Article 263 of the Treaty of Versailles

read:

Germany gives a guarantee to the Brazilian Government that all sums

representing the sale of coffee belonging to the State of Sao Paolo [sic] in theports of Hamburg, Bremen, Antwerp and Trieste, which were deposited with theBank of Bleichroder at Berlin, shall be reimbursed together with interest at therate or rates agreed upon.167

Securing the 46 German ships, however, had proved more challenging. Never

mind the legal standing of the confiscationor requisition, or utilization. Terminology

was itself a hurdle, but it was not nearly as problematic as the fact that the French now

seemed bent on keeping the thirty vessels they had leased from Brazil in 1917.France had first proposed an extension. The ships would continue to fly Brazilian

flags, but they would remain under French command for an additional six months.168

Given our condition as an exporting country and the insufficiency of our means of

transit, it may seem misguided to extend the agreement, Epitcio telegraphed to

Domcio. However, in my opinion, other reasons advise the measure. He cited two.

First, the Brazilian Lloyd, to whom the ships belonged, was presently in disarray. The

wars reshuffling of international commerce had wreaked havoc on the Lloyds

cumbersome bureaucracy, and the company would be ill prepared to handle thirty

additional vessels. A one-year extension, Epitcio wrote, would allow the Lloyd to

regroup.

The second reason was strategic. Epitcio knew that Brazils claim to the shipswas legally precarious. The country had requisitioned the vessels while neutral, so the

166 Pessoa to Gama, April 29, 1919, AHI 273/2/9.167 The Versailles Treaty, June 28, 1919, online at The Avalon Project, Yale Law School,http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/partix.asp.168 Gama to Pessoa, April 1, 1919, AHI 273/2/10.


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39measure wasnt an act of war, and the eminent domain argument offered in the foreign

ministrys dossier was, in essence, theft by the state. If Brazil hoped to keep the ships, it

needed the good will of the Great Powers. Extending the lease would bring France to

our side, committing her to defend our common interests, Epitcio wrote. On the other

hand, Refusing the offer might compel her to acquire the ships by other means.169 He

had even heard rumors that France might appropriate the ships (which legally were still

German) as reparations for war damages.170

With this in mind, Epitcio arranged an exploratory meeting with Paul Gauthier, a

secretary in the French delegation. On the arranged date, a Saturday in late March,Gauthier appeared flanked by three merchant marine officers and Paul Claudel, the

former French minister in Rio. The five Frenchmen seemed ready finalize the deal, but

Epitcio protested: he had no authority to negotiate and wanted only to know Frances

terms so as to relay them to Domcio. Fair enough, Gauthier responded. The terms were

these: France agreed to extend the lease, but on the condition that Brazil pay 40 million

Francs in maintenance costs and an additional 25 million in late fees, as Brazil had taken

too long to make the ships available (one of the leased vessels, the Santos, was still

anchored in a Brazilian port at the time). France would pay nothing upfront for the

arrangement (freight could be arranged for individual trips), and it demanded the ships

for a full year, not six months. Finally, Brazil could keep its flag on the masts, but the

ships would be manned entirely by French crews.

171

The terms were aggressively one-sided, but Epitcio found them agreeable. The

maintenance costs, he told Domcio, had been provided for in the original contract, and

169 Pessoa a Gama, March 20, 1919, AHI 273/2/9.170 Pessoa a Gama, March 29, 1919, AHI 273/2/9.171 Pessoa a Gama, March 29, 1919, AHI 273/2/9.


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40the demand for shipping had declined with the end of the war, so France had good reason

to refuse an upfront fee. And if the French didnt get their way, he reminded Domcio,

they might challenge Brazils tenuous legal claim. Ceding the ships for a year was

preferable to losing them altogether.172

Domcio agreed, but he took issue with the demand that the crews be exclusively

French. The public would balk at this measure, he wrote.173 They could negotiate a

provision to add Brazilian officers and sailors to the crews, but this would require

congressional approval, and Domcio preferred to keep the matter within the ministry,

shielded from public scrutiny. He was hopeful, he wrote, that the two governments, insome skillful manner, might reach some agreement on the matter.174 (He later told one

reporter that the delegation had been working silently out of necessity.175)

Not a week had passed before France forced Epitcios hand. Working with the

British, the French introduced a plan to pool all captured German merchant ships and

redistribute them among the Allies, ton for ton, in proportion to each countrys losses.176

This arrangement made sense for Britain and France, both of which had lost more ships

than they had captured. But for Brazil, whose captures greatly exceeded its losses, the

plan was disastrous:

172 Pessoa a Gama, March 29, 1919, AHI 273/2/9.173 Gama to Pessoa, April 1, 1919, AHI 273/2/10.174 Gama to Pessoa, April 2, 1919, AHI 273/2/10.175 A Aco do Brasil na Conferencia,Estado de So Paulo, May 7, 1919.176 Gama to Pessoa, April 5, 1919, AHI 273/2/10.


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41LOST TONNAGE CAPTURED TONNAGE

ENGLAND 7,740,000 400,000

FRANCE 950,000 45,000

UNITED STATES 389,489 628,000

BRAZIL 25,000 216,000177

The United States also stood to lose from this arrangement. If the Allies were

made to share the ships, its surplus might quickly become a deficit, so Wilson protested.

Americans had a legitimate right to those vessels, he told his colleagues at the Council ofFour, having secured their title to them by law. He continued, The ships had been so

damaged that millions of dollars had had to be spent on their repairs and new methods

that had to be devised. Throughout, these ships had been used for the indispensable

transport of the American armies to France. It would not be tolerable to public opinion in

the United States if their title to these ships was not recognized.178

There was a great difference between the value of ships to Great Britain and the

United States, Lloyd George responded. It was like the value of ships to a fisherman

compared with ships to a swell yachtsman, he said. Great Britain lived on ships.179

Wilson countered: the Americans had lost not only ships but thousands of lives.

In other countries, such lives were being provided for by reparation arrangements.

177 Notes of a Meeting Which Took Place at President Wilsons House in the Place des Etats-Unis, Paris, onWednesday, April 23, 1919, at 4 p.m. (minutes), in FRUS, vol. 5, 162. Eugenio Vargas, p. 41, offers slightly differentfigures for every country except Brazil. England would have lost 8,000,000 tons and captured 500,000; France wouldhave lost 930,000 and captured 50,000; and the United States would have lost 430,489 and captured 628,000. In thisessay, I choose to use the figures that the statesmen in Paris had been using, as this more accurately reflect theirperception of the debate over the ships.178 Notes of a MeetingApril 23, 1919, FRUS, vol. 5, 161-2.179 Notes of a MeetingApril 23, 1919, FRUS, vol. 5, 162.


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42America had claimed no reparations for herself. All she wanted were the ships.180

Lloyd George pondered. Fine, he said at last. The British would enter into an

arrangement with the Americans. The Brazilians, however, had no claim for walking

off with so many ships, he said.181 They had seized the vessels thanks only to the Great

Powers, which had forced the Germans to seek shelter in Brazilian ports.182

The Council of Four held that meeting, as most of their meetings, in Wilsons

home at No. 11 Place des tats-Unis, in a book-lined study decorated with paintings that

hung in heavy frames.183 In attendance were Wilson and Lloyd George and their French

counterpart, Georges Clemenceau.

184

(Vittorio Orlando, the Italian prime minister andfourth member of the Council, had, by April, absented himself from their meetings.185)

The discussion between Wilson and Lloyd George took place behind closed doors,

meaning that Epitcio wasnt privy to their agreement. Not until the following day, when

he was called before the Reparations Commission, did Epitcio discover that the British

had agreed to exempt the Americans from the pooling scheme.186

Immediately he tried to obtain a similar arrangement. Over a dinner meeting on

April 29, 1919, Colonel House, Wilsons advisor, promised to represent Brazil on the

matter, assuring Epitcio that the issue was by no means resolved.187 Lloyd George,

despite his unsympathetic position, also said no decision had been reached.188 But Louis

180 Notes of a MeetingApril 23, 1919, FRUS, vol. 5, 162.

181 Notes of a MeetingApril 23, 1919, FRUS, vol. 5, 162.182 Pessoa to Gama, May 2, 1919, AHI 273/2/9.183 Ray Stannard Baker, Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement: Written from his unpublished and personal material(New York: Doubleday, Page, & Company, 1923), 156. Z-MDD-WW-18 (photograph), 1919, Woodrow WilsonCollection, Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton Unitersity, online athttp://libweb2.princeton.edu/rbsc2/portfolio/ww/fi/00000011.htm.184 Notes of a MeetingApril 23, 1919, FRUS, vol. 5, 155.185 MacMillan, Paris 1919, 279-305.186 Pessoa to Gama, April 24, 1919, AHI 273/2/9.187 Pessoa to Gama, April 29, 1919, AHI 273/2/9.188 Pessoa to Gama, May 2, 1919, AHI 273/2/9.


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44public. Brazils claim on the 46 ships was legally unfounded. It would be found criminal

if examined in a court. This fact is implicit in Epitcios decision to pursue a political

solution. When pressed, the delegation proved itself willing to deal behind closed doors,

enlisting, if necessary, the help of Colonel House, politicker extraordinaire. For the

Brazilians in Paris, interests trumped principles.

And it bears noting the interests at hand: 46 merchant ships. For all their outrage

at the label of power with special interests, the Brazilian delegates showed themselves

terribly myopic. The world awaited remaking, Domcio had told Calgeras in December

of 1918. The statesmen gathered in Paris were engaging with hugely importantquestionshow ought the world handle German colonial possessions? What attitude

ought it take towards Russias new Bolshevik regime? How ought it ensure the freedom

of navigation? How ought it enforce peace?but the record shows no Brazilian

participation in any of these debates.

The world was being turned upside down and a new order was being

inaugurated, Colonel House wrote in his diary.194 The Brazilians seemed to want no part

of it. Rather, they obsessed over ships46 of them, stolen from Germany. As Epitcio

left House after dinner that night in April, the American promised he would do

everything that was possible to help.195

PARIS

:J

UNE3,

1919

Epitcio didnt stay in Paris long enough to see the issue resolved. By June, the

British had given up on the pooling scheme, and the French had agreed to recognize the

194 House, diary entry, January 31, 1919.195 House, diary entry, April 29, 1919.


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45Brazilian claim to the ships, on the condition that Brazil would sell to France the thirty

vessels already in her possession. This was even better than simply keeping the ships,

wrote Epitcio: with the profits of the sale, Brazil could buy newer ships better suited for

its ports, and these could be purchased gradually, so as to allow the Brazilian Lloyd time

to maneuver its bureaucracy around the enlarged fleet.196 The arrangement was more than

satisfactory. True, the French had immediately begun to drag their heels, refusing to put

ink to paper, but Epitcio felt the deal would soon be finalized.197 It seems, therefore,

that my stay here is not crucial, he wrote.198 (Pandi Calgeras left Paris shortly

thereafter, on similar grounds.

199

They were both wrong: it would be another year and ahalf before the French finally signed a contract.200)

So on Tuesday, June 3, 1919, Epitcio and his family departed Paris, amidst much

fanfare. Even Georges Clemenceau, flanked by his foreign minister and Raymond

Poincar, the French president, made an appearance at the train station.201 From the port

town of Bolougne-sur-Mer, Epitcio would cross the Channel to England, and from there,

he would voyage to Lisbon.202 Then he would sail to the United States, in time for the

Fourth of July, and after a jaunt to Canada, he would return home to Brazil. (The French,

perhaps eager to see him off their continent, made a cruiser available for the transatlantic

leg of his voyage.203)

The telegram that reported his departure referred to him as Presidente

196 Pe

Brazilians in Paris: 1919

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