WRIGHT— POWER TO MAKE AGREEMENTS. 329 



i68. Armistices and Preliminaries of Peace. 



But if it is difficult to draw the line separating the power of 

 the President and that of field officers and admirals, it is equally 

 difficult to draw the line between the power of the President as 

 Commander-in-Chief and the treaty-making power. An armistice 

 ending hostilities necessarily contains certain preliminaries of peace. 

 This was true of the preliminaries of peace with Spain of August 

 12, 1898, and the preliminaries of peace and armistice with Ger- 

 many of November 5 and 11, 1918. In each, the general condi- 

 tions of peace were outlined, and in each the defeated enemy alleged 

 that the conditions on which it had agreed to end hostilities were 

 not carried out in the definitive treaty.^^ But though a defeated 

 enemy may have little recourse in such circumstances, a more dif- 

 ficult question is raised, with reference to the obligation of ' the 

 Senate to consent to the ratification of a treaty in accord with 

 the terms of the armistice. Can the President by ratification of 

 an armistice, containing political terms of peace, oblige the full 

 treaty-power to ratify the same terms in the final treaty? This issue 

 was raised with reference to Article X of the League of Nations 

 Covenant, which though included in the President's XlVth point, 

 and formally agreed to by the allies and Germany in the exchange 

 of notes of November 5, 19 18, on the basis of which the armistice 

 of November 11 was made, was rejected by the Senate when it 

 appeared in the final treaty.*'' Clearly an armistice ought not to 

 affect the political terms of peace beyond the minimum necessary to 

 bring hostilities to an end. Within this minimum, however, the 

 President, as Commander-in-Chief, is competent to conclude armi- 

 stices, and his agreement ought to be observed by the Senate in 

 consenting to the definitive peace treaty. In the protocol of 1901 

 ending the Boxer uprising in China, the President not only agreed 

 to a termination of military operations, but also to the indemnity 

 which China should pay and other conditions, such as razing forts, 

 and improving watercourses in which she would cooperate.*^ 



3» On the obligation of armistices see Moore, 7: 336, supra, sec. 30, 

 note 54- 



*^ Su/yra, sec. 30; Wright, Minn. Lazv Rev., 4: 35. 



*^ Crandall, op. cit., p. 104, infra, sec. 251. 



