[44], In Paris, with Clemenceau and Lloyd George now adamant that they were entitled to full compensation and Wilson insistent that they were not, a crisis loomed. He was also adamant, against domestic and foreign opposition, that the former Kaiser should be brought to trial. "[13] Paris could facilitate such a massive conference but the atmosphere in a city so recently menaced by German arms was hardly conducive to moderation or generosity. Attempted to gain recognition of the independence of Lebanon. He likewise attempted to block the extensive definition of reparations presented to him by Lloyd George, who strangely did not include this aspect in his notion of moderation towards Berlin. At the end of March, only the military clauses of the future peace had been decided: no military service in Germany, an army limited to 100,000 men, no armoured forces or aircraft, and a demilitarization of the left bank of the Rhine. Lloyd George was absent until 5 March 1919, whilst on 19 February 1919, Clemenceau survived an assassination attempt. The Council of Four Prime Ministers Lloyd George of Britain, Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929) of France, Vittorio Orlando (1860-1952) of Italy and American President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) became the main decision-making body until the German treaty was signed. A Personal Narrative, Boston 1921, pp. The Politics, Economics and Diplomacy of Reparations, 1918-1932, Oxford 1989, pp. [27], Germany lost Alsace-Lorraine to France, Eupen and Malmedy to Belgium, northern Schleswig to Denmark, Danzig to the League, and the Polish corridor (which split East and West Prussia), Posen and half of Upper Silesia to Poland, and, eventually, Memel to Lithuania. 67-146; Duroselle, Jean-Baptiste: Clemenceau, Paris 1988, pp. ", "Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, The Paris Peace Conference, 1919, Volume IV - Office of the Historian", "Andorra va declarar la guerra a Alemanya el 1914? Lentin, Antony: Maynard Keynes and the "Bamboozlement" of Woodrow Wilson. 769ff; Ferguson, Niall: The Pity of War, London 1998, p. 417 suggests similar figures. 19-41. His brother, Jules Cambon (1845-1935), predicted after the opening ceremony, that the result would be "une improvisation"(an improvisation). The formal inauguration of the League of Nations on January 16, 1920, brought the Paris conference to an end, before the conclusion of treaties with Turkey (1920, 1923) or with Hungary (1920).
[40], Elsewhere the shape of the modern Middle East, fashioned by a combination of European imperialism and rivalries between local powers, emerged from the collapsed Ottoman Empire. Much would depend on how their successors interpreted and implemented their legacy. Major products of the conference were (1) the Covenant of the League of Nations, which was submitted in a first draft on February 14, 1919, and finally approved, in a revised version, on April 28, (2) the Treaty of Versailles, presented at last to a German delegation on May 7, 1919, and signed, after their remonstrances, on June 28, (3) the Treaty of Saint-Germain, presented to an Austrian delegation in a rough draft on June 2, 1919, and in a fuller version on July 20 and signed on September 10, and (4) the Treaty of Neuilly, presented to a Bulgarian delegation on September 19, 1919, and signed on November 27. He was successful in moving the Italian frontier to the Brenner with the acquisition of South Tyrol from Austria, which consigned some 250,000 German-speakers to Italian rule. It was this governing body that decided the essence of the clauses in the future treaty with Germany, whereas the Austrian or Bulgarian matters were left to the Council of Five, bringing together the foreign ministers and the Japanese representative. His "program for the peace of the world" endorsed the calls for a "new diplomacy" to replace the secretive methods of the aristocratic European elite that many radicals blamed for the catastrophe. The peacemakers neglected the abject Ottomans throughout 1919, only drafting the terms of Svres in London and San Remo in the spring of 1920, by which time conditions were much altered. Hungary, which lost two-thirds of its pre-war territory and 58 percent of its population, suffered the heaviest deprivations of any of the defeated powers, losing a third of its Magyar people. [20], Wilson exhorted his colleagues on his voyage to Europe, "Tell me what is right and I will fight for it. 55-107. Acknowledging that "the hungry expect us to feed them, the roofless look to us for shelter, the sick of heart and body depend on us for cure", he feared "a tragedy of disappointment", a foreboding that cannot have been eased by his messianic welcomes in Europe. Hitlers exploitation of the Sudetenland Germans in his 1938 dismantling of Czechoslovakia represented the nightmare they sought to avoid, whilst Balfours sardonic comment summarises the insoluble nature of the problems: "General Edward A. Plunketts (1870-1926) solution of our eastern European difficulties is that we should put the whole area in charge of a genius. On the other hand, Germanys unwillingness could be punished by prolongation of the occupation period. ", His later speeches demanded an end to "the great game, now forever discredited, of the Balance of Power", the satisfaction of "all well-defined national aspirations" (with the caveat that these should not create or continue antagonisms likely to disturb the peace), and "a fair and just and honest peacein which the strong and the weak shall fare alike." [24], For seventy-seven year old Clemenceau, who had twice seen France invaded by a more populous and powerful Germany, security was key. The Paris Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War, London 2001, p. 35. 117-46 and. He required the evacuation and restoration of all territories occupied by the Central Powers in Russia, Belgium, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro. Yet it took more than two months after the armistice before the conference opened, partly delayed by a general election in Britain in which Lloyd George sought to turn victory into political capital to consolidate his position as the Liberal leader of a predominantly Conservative coalition. Peacemaking; Versailles; Big Four; Self-determination; Reparations, The Paris Peace Conference and its Consequences, Big Four world leaders at the Paris Peace Conference, Clemenceau, Wilson, Sonnino and Balfour in the courtyard of Versailles, Delegates at the first day of the Paris Peace Conference, The Signing of the Peace in the Hall of Mirrors, Versailles 28th June 1919, Venizelos signing the Treaty of Svres, 1920, Turkish delegates to the Conference of Lausanne, 1923. Concerning the former, the Americans and the British resisted French demands affecting Germanys western frontier and the Polish demand, supported by France, for Danzig (Gdask), while the Americans also objected to Japanese claims to Germanys special privileges in Shantung (Shandong), China. Germany defaulted on its reparation liabilities in 1932, after paying about 1.1 billion including deliveries in kind. proposed borders for insertion in the treaties. Its loss of Western Thrace to Greece deprived it of access to the Aegean and, proportionate to its size and wealth, it faced the highest reparations bill of all the Central Powers. 28-34. After June 1919 and the departure, first of Orlando, then of Lloyd George and Wilson, the Five became the main body of the conference, gradually changing composition as the foreign ministers were replaced by their ambassadors or officials. This article offers an overview of peacemaking after the First World War from the armistices of 1918 until 1923. Lloyd George, David: The Truth about the Peace Treaties, vol. The League was last on their agenda a move hardly likely to endear the suggestion to Wilson, especially when they stated the Fourteen Points were "not sufficiently defined in their character to be taken as a basis for a concrete settlement of the war." There is also a tendency to highlight the dynamics of treaty clauses and the novel aspects of the Versailles order, which also made it into a new phase for international law through the LN, the ILO (International Labour Organization) and minority rights. Dalby, Andrew: Eleftherios Venizelos, Greece. Lobbied for the independence of West Ukraine. Despite such distractions Germany was the priority for the peacemakers. This delay was attributable chiefly to the British prime minister, David Lloyd George, who chose to have his mandate confirmed by a general election before entering into negotiations. After March 1919 this group divided. Lentin, Antony: Lloyd George and the Lost Peace. The affirmation of a consular diplomacy during the modern period, European Political Cooperation (1970-1993), Childrens diplomacy and the construction of childrens rights during the twentieth century, 2020 EHNE - ISSN 2677-6588 Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism, Oxford 2007. : The Peace Conference of 1919. The British diplomat Harold Nicolson (1886-1968) reflected: "Had it been known from the outset that no negotiations would ever take place with the enemy, it is certain that many of the less reasonable clauses of the Treaty would never have been inserted."[16]. Meanwhile in Indochina, Ho Chi Minh, who had unsuccessfully tried to submit the Vietnamese national case to the Paris conference, exploited the growing resentment against French colonial rule in the 1930s. Neville, Peter: Eduard Bene and Tom Masaryk, Czechoslovakia. Its main forum was initially the Council of Ten the heads of government and foreign ministers of America, Britain, France and Italy, as well as two Japanese representatives. MacMillan, Margaret: Peacemakers.
1919, London 1963, pp. 61-116. It was at this exact moment when the German enemy arrived at Versailles. Crampton, R.J.: Aleksandr Stambolisk, Bulgaria. Hitchins, Keith: Ion I C Brtianu, Romania. 273-300. ): A History of the Peace Conference of Paris, vol. Sally Marks comments that, without German reparations, "German economic dominance would be tantamount to victory.
Steiner, Zara: The Lights That Failed. They capitulated. This he did on 14 December 1918, but the popular perception that his government would secure massive German payments to offset the costs of the war and bring the ex-German Emperor Wilhelm II to trial and execution, represented hostages to fortune. 22-106; Bulloch, Jamie: Karl Renner, Austria. 
Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. All the new states were dissatisfied with their frontiers, whilst the ethnic kaleidoscope resulting from centuries of wars, migrations and inter-marriage meant that none was a truly national entity, each containing minorities that were resented and feared.
From Versailles to Hitler, 1919-1940, Basingstoke 2001, pp. Ziele, Wirkung, Wahrnehmung (Essen: Klartext Verlag, 2001). [52], Nicolson was typical of many Anglo-American participants when he declared, "We came to Paris convinced that the new order was about to be established; we left it convinced that the old order had merely fouled the new. Historian Pere Cavero could only find an exchange of letters between the German consul in Marseille and the Catalan Ombudsman, where the former asks if there is a state of war with Andorra and the latter responds they could find nothing in their archive to indicate this. It was forbidden union with the rump state of Austria. Here, as with the Saar coalfields, giving the League sovereignty provided a useful mechanism to reconcile the conflicting principles. I have never been asked", Clemenceau inquired. Makers of the Modern World, London 2009, pp. [46], Faced, unlike Germany, with heavy reconstruction costs and sizeable external debts of 3.7 billion, of which 2.96 billion was owed to the United States,[47] the Allies suggested an all-round cancellation of inter-allied debt in return for reducing Germanys liabilities. The Myth of Czechoslovakia in Europe, 1914-1948, Oxford 2009; and Heimann, Mary: Czechoslovakia. The French presupposed an Allied dictation of terms to Germany and then a broader gathering to tackle more general questions. [25][26] In reality, Andorra did not officially participate in World War I. In Smoke-Filled Rooms and the Galerie des Glaces, in: Boemeke, Manfred / Feldman, Gerald / Glaser, Elisabeth (eds. Christmas and the New Year intervened and, although all were aware of the enormous task before them, it was difficult to refocus immediately. The American president even prepared his ship, the George Washington, for a potential early return to the United States.
All monetary figures are in sterling (gold).
The Russian SFSR was not invited to attend, having already concluded a peace treaty with the Central Powers in the spring of 1918. Attempted to gain recognition of the independence of Estonia. T.E. 
[48] German nationalists exploited their interpretation of an exclusive responsibility for the war (which Article 231 did not assert) to good effect in their struggle against the treaty. From 1900 to 1920, tug-of-war was an official event at the Summer Olympics. A sustained post-war insurgency campaign by the Irish Republican Army against British Crown forces led in 1920 to the partition of Ireland into the Irish Free State in the south whilst in the north six of the nine counties of historic Ulster remained part of the United Kingdom. As far east as Germanys boundaries with Poland the peacemakers could decide. 
Finally he called for a League of Nations offering "mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small States alike. The Leagues problem lay in the gap between the expectations of the public that it could avert another great war and the reluctance of politicians to trust an untried experiment. [31], In Europe thousands of miles of new frontiers came into existence. ): The Treaty of Versailles. Boemeke / Feldman / Glaser, The Treaty 1998, pp. (Wilson, Lloyd George, pensions and pre-armistice agreement), in: Diplomacy and Statecraft 15/4 (2004), pp. The Indian National Congress, originally established to promote dialogue with Britain, was already pressing for home rule before the war, radicalised by Curzons attempt to partition Bengal. When this happened reborn Polands ambitions were not modest, reclaiming lands lost in the fourteenth century, but Lloyd George, in particular, fought to limit German losses in Upper Silesia and on the fringes of the Polish corridor. As Germanys leaders discovered the following June, there was no possibility that they could renew hostilities.
Lloyd George, in October 1922, was the last of the Four to leave office. [35] Bulgaria, whose hopes of territorial gain (however unrealistic for a defeated power) were disappointed, emerged with 45,000 square miles of territory and a population of 5,200,000 compared to 47,750 square miles and 5,500,000 people in 1914.
It was also within this Council of Four that divisions among the Allies erupted: in late March Wilson strongly opposed the French claims over the Saar expressed by Clemenceau. Lloyd Georges arrival in Paris was followed on January 12, 1919, by a preliminary meeting of the French, British, U.S., and Italian heads of government and foreign ministersrespectively, Georges Clemenceau and Stephen Pichon; Lloyd George and Arthur James Balfour; Woodrow Wilson (who fell ill at the conference, probably having contracted the flu as the influenza pandemic of 191819 raged) and Robert Lansing; and Vittorio Emanuele Orlando and Sidney Sonninoat which it was decided that they themselves, with the Japanese plenipotentiaries, would constitute a Supreme Council, or Council of Ten, to monopolize all the major decision making. During a decisive week in early April 1919, the break between the Europeans and the Americans threatened the conference itself on multiple occasions. [3] Peacemaking had thus taken longer than the war itself, whilst the process might be compared to the spasmodic assembly of a complicated jigsaw puzzle, whose pieces were produced at different times and by separate hands, creating its solution from a combination of intention and circumstance. The resulting confusion was reflected by Paul Cambon (1843-1924), Frances veteran ambassador to London, who lamented: "No matter how hard you try, you cannot imagine the shambles, the chaos, the incoherence, the ignorance here." 170-88, 184. Other non-national or pan-national delegations were in Paris, hoping to petition the allies on issues relating to their causes. [23], In 1915 Britain, France and Russia made extravagant promises in the Treaty of London to secure Italian intervention in the war. Convened and met from 10 February to 10 April 1919. It is not one continent that is engaged every continent is engaged. 7f. Wilson expected resistance from his colleagues in Paris, but he was also aware of another threat. Specialized commissions were appointed to study particular problems: the organization of a League of Nations and the drafting of its Covenant; the determination of responsibility for the war and guarantees against a renewal of it; reparations; international labour legislation; international ports, waterways, and railroads; financial questions; economic questions of a permanent sort; aviation; naval and military matters; and territorial questions. Nevertheless, the discussions of the Council of Ten were marked by the absence of decisions, and by long hearings in which representatives of states aspiring to international recognition presented their requirements. Despite not signing the treaties, other delegations were sent to the Paris Peace Conferences, some uninvited, in order to represent their national interests.
Sharp, Alan: The Paris Peace Conference and its Consequences (Version 1.1), in: 1914-1918-online. 111-44; Clements, Jonathan: Wellington Koo, China. They resented this approach to a newcomer to their ranks. It analyzes the organization of the conference and the aims and ambitions of the leading personalities involved, concluding with an appraisal of reparations, self-determination and the reputation of the settlements. In Egypt three years of widespread anti-British violence began in March 1919, before Britain imposed partial independence in 1922, under which it retained control of defence and the Suez Canal. Manela, Erez: The Wilsonian Moment. The unification of Serbia and Montenegro on 18th November 1918 was contested by the exiled king of Montenegro. Clements, Jonathan: Prince Saionji, Japan. Millions more died in the inter- and intra-state wars that continued after 1918. Schuker, Stephen: American Reparations to Germany, 1919-1933. Implications for the Third-World Debt Crisis, Princeton 1988. Pre-la-Victoire (Old Man Victory) sought this in a number of ways. [38], Czechoslovakia, based upon the ancient kingdom of Bohemia, with the addition of Slovakia and Moravia, owed much to the efforts of two men, Tom Masaryk (1850-1937), whose father was Slovak, and Eduard Bene (1884-1948), a Czech. Do not imagine that they will ever forgive us; they will seek only the chance to obtain revenge. [4], Wilson demanded additional conditions from his other 1918 speeches notably the "Four Principles" (11 February), the "Four Ends" (4 July) and the "Five Particulars" (27 September). Paris Peace Conference, (191920), the meeting that inaugurated the international settlement after World War I. The British Dominions, their identities tempered by war, expected greater autonomy, whilst Irish nationalists sought independence. 64-70; Willis, James F.: Prologue to Nuremberg. Makers of the Modern World, London 2010, pp. The peacemakers did establish a system of protection for these minorities, partly to encourage their assimilation and partly to avoid their supplying neighbouring kin-states with an excuse to disrupt the new order. The Paris Peace Conference, the first diplomatic gathering to bring together so many countries from all continents (twenty-seven nations, four British Dominions and India), was tasked with bringing the First World War to a diplomatic end. 725-63; Lentin, Antony: The Last Political Law Lord. Peacemaking After the First World War, 1919-1923, Basingstoke 2008, pp. We have no geniuss [sic] available. He secured a plebiscite on the fate of Upper Silesia but little else. He had no faith in Wilsons just settlement: "You want to do justice to the Germans. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Organisation and Procedure, Oxford 1944; Sharp, Alan: The Versailles Settlement. Reparations would both deny Germany that victory and spread the pain of undoing the damage done." Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria and Hungary, together with the Soviet Union, filled the political vacuum left by the collapsed empires. Keynes (and many subsequent writers) condemned the reparations settlement. III, Paris 1946, p. 311; Nicolson, Harold: Peacemaking 1919, London 1933, p. 242. Held in February 1919 in order to petition the allies on African issues. 1-22; Sharp, Alan: David Lloyd George, Great Britain.
It was also passed responsibility for minority protection for some national groups left on the wrong side of the new frontiers. The food situation and political instability resulting from the Bolshevik Revolution were also constant worries for the peacemakers (M. MacMillan), along with their concern for making the structures permanent thanks to a collective security organization. Clemenceau hoped that, given time, a more federal Germany might emerge, and accompanied by his bitter rival, French President Raymond Poincar (1860-1934), celebrated the triumphant return of Lorraine and Alsace, lost in 1871, with visits on 8 and 9 December 1918. James Headlam-Morley (1863-1929), a British expert in Paris, observed: "In the discussions everything inevitably leads up to Russia. Britain and France were left to execute a settlement that the Americans had heavily influenced but now reneged upon.