With these two Powers disaffected and showing a disposition to refuse to accept membership in the proposed League of Nations the opposition of France to the Covenant would have been fatal.

It would have been the end of the President's dream of a world organized to maintain peace by an international guaranty of national boundaries and sovereignties.

Whether France would in the end have insisted on the additional guaranty of protection I doubt, but it is evident that Mr.
Wilson believed that she would and decided to prevent a disaster to his plan by acceding to the wishes of his French colleague.
Some time in April prior to the acceptance of the Treaty of Peace by the Premiers of the Allied Powers, the President and Mr.Lloyd George agreed with M.Clemenceau to negotiate the treaties of protective alliance which the French demanded.

The President advised me of his decision on the day before the Treaty was delivered to the German plenipotentiaries stating in substance that his promise to enter into the alliance formed a part of the settlements as fully as if written into the Treaty.

I told him that personally I considered an agreement to negotiate the treaty of assistance a mistake, as it discredited Article 10 of the Covenant, which he considered all-important, and as it would, I was convinced, be the cause of serious opposition in the United States.