A Treaty of the Allied Powers and others present at Versailles and Paris, France January – June, 1919

Procedural Notes: A weighted voting system was established unilaterally by ‘Big Four’.

Discussions:

  • France, led by Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau opened discussions.
  • Germany must pay, says France. Decisions in Germany brought about the war. The blank check given to Austria-Hungary in their dispute with Serbia brought on the war. Wilson does not oppose the idea of reparations but says the USA will take none.
  • Have the victors thought about the ability of Germany to pay for such a sizable payment from Germany?
  • German military must become limited in size.
  • A League of Nations needs to be established. African and Middle Eastern regions need help to become nations.
  • Shall the German colonies in Africa return to control of France and Great Britain? Who gets what?
  • The Arabs represented by Emir Faisal and the World Zionist Congress, represented by Chaim Weizmann at this conference are conferring on the ways in which both an Arab state might be established, and a national home for the Zionists inside the area of historic Palestine, along with the question of who shall govern the region and for how long, and crucially, what the boundaries of the Arab state will be.
  • The issue of the League of Nations having a military wing, or army structure to enforce security matters is under discussion. In the event of an armed conflict (betw. nations, at least one of whom is a member nation), a special League council or “Special Arbitration Council” will ask for troops to be donated to the League and introduced to separate the sides. This is a deterrent ability. Who gets on this Special Council? Is this obligatory for all members? What if this undermines our relations with other countries? You (country X) would make available some peace-keeping forces.
  • The news from Germany is under discussion. Are the reactions to reparations payment creating havoc unnecessarily? German must pay. Why don’t we move on to other issues….like ending European imperialism elsewhere in the world.
  • Emir Faisal (Hashemite King of the Hejaz and Victor of the Arab Revolt) presents a map for the creation of a great ARAB state; to acknowledge the Balfour Decl. and the need of Zionists, as well as other religious and ethnic would be protected by an INTERNATIONAL area (Greater Jerusalem, akin to the federal district of Columbia governed by Congress in the USA) controlled and administered by the LEAGUE of Nations. Weizmann agrees to this as long as Jewish immigration continues as it has under British control since 1917 (when this region fell from Ottoman control to the British). How autonomous would the Zionist nation inside this region be? Is this a country? The League can help arbitrate but the Arab majority and the small Jewish minority need to work out some agreement themselves. France does not believe in an independent Jewish state in “British Palestine.” Britain supports a homeland and perhaps even a “state” for Jews, but not at this time, and is willing to govern the region for the time being. Can their be a guarantee within the next decade of establishing the Arab state and the Jewish state? No guarantee, says Great Britain, but we’ll try!
  • Reference again to the map….Zionists claim areas from Mt. Hebron to the border with Egypt (Gaza).
  • Japan and China have come to agreement on the need for a written RACIAL equality clause to be written into the Treaty and or the League of Nations charter. The treatment of Asians throughout the world has been despicable and the clause is needed in law.
  • Japan requests direct control of the SHANDONG peninsula (a chunk of China that juts into the South China Sea); this hands German colonial claims in China over to Japan. Japan was on the winning side in the war and wants her share of the ‘spoils’.
  • Recognition of the Arab and Jewish state by the Great Power Treaty and immediate membership in the aforesaid League of Nations.
  • Sinai and east bank of the Suez Canal? Possibly.
  • Czech lands demonstrated and considered for statehood; national boundaries for Romania also considered.
  • Poland wants Upper Silesia; Byelorussia, Pomerania, and the eastern portion of Gemany
  • France says a new Czech country and a new larger Poland helps reign-in a future Germany
  • Serbia!....our people want a larger, unified power: we should obtain regions to the Adriatic…Bosnia (where the GREAT WAR started!) in particular. Weren’t you on the wrong side, says France….Let’s vote on Poland, Czechoslovakia (and Romania)?
  • How can Germany pay if her lands are so drastically reduced? Land are part of Reparations, says Poland.
  • Serbia!....Greece doesn’t like the aggression of Serbia in forming a state that extends this far.
  • Okay, we may have helped start the war, but we were attacked by the Austrians so we have a common enemy and were are a part of the League. Trust us now. They were on the ALLIED side.
  • The Great Powers demand that Poland addresses the ethnic violence now along her borders between Germany and Poland.
  • Greece wants enlarged state as well.
  • Mustafa Kemal proposes a division of the former Ott. Emp. to create a new modern Turkish state. See his map. Britain slams the Turks for their behavior in the late war; France mentions the thousands of Armenians killed in the creation of the eastern boundary of his ‘new’ country. Kemal proposes southern boundary of Turkey. British and French and Italians are reluctant because of Turkey’s behavior. Kemal says he cannot be faulted for previous Ottoman leadership actions. He is the new Turk. Let Turkish-French rule be joint in the region between Beirut and Aleppo. See map.
  • Greece is now controlling parts of Serbia, Bulgaria and Albania.
  • Wilson: Germany needs help; not more loss of land and money. Will USA lend Germany money? Germany should be helped so that stability can be restored and Germany can pay
  • All colonies of the Great European powers must end….soon. Wilson’s ideas need to be taken seriously says Nguyen aiQuoc.
  • Japan – okay we have a league, we need a racial equality clause (do the Japan believe they are superior to the Chinese? Given how easily China was partially colonized and occupied by the foreign powers in the late 1800s? And recall too that China was defeated in Korea by the Japanese in 1897).
  • Racism should be made internationally illegal….all foreign meddling in China must end.

Resolutions:

  1. Germany must pay up to pay a war debt of 120 billion (US$) to a Reparations Committee which will then divide the money to the Allied powers according to the damages each country has suffered. The terms of this reparation payment (installments, over how much time, interest on debt etc.) will be decided by a Reparations Committee.
  2. Germany’s Army and Navy must be limited. German Armed forces are not to exceed 100,000 soldiers and they shall serve a maximum of one year’s service. As such the German Army is never to exceed 50% the size of the French Army. The German Navy is never to exceed 50% the size of the British Navy.
  3. A League of Nations is to be established in Geneva, Switzerland. An “Executive Council” composed of members of the Big Four will determine admission of nation states.
  4. The League of Nations will have a military structure with a Special Arbitration Council, to be known as the LEAGUE of NATIONS alliance (amended language decided without vote).
  5. Both a large Arab state and an extensive Jewish state will be created in the Middle East, in areas controlled by the British military after its defeat of the Ottomans.
  6. Shandong province is returned to joint Japanese and Chinese control, and Japan promises to withdraw soon.
  7. Three new nations are created….Romania, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. Boundaries determined by ethnic majority.
  8. Turkey established with borders as defined in the conference with joint control with France….pending.
  9. Alsace Lorraine returned to France.
  10. Greece and Bulgaria given former European parts of the Ott. Emp, and southern boundaries of Turkey as previously detailed: Turkish-French rule be joint in the region between Beirut and Aleppo.
  11. Racial equality must be a tenet of the final treaty and the League of Nations.
  12. Reparations payment schedule to be slowed down.
  13. Serbia should become a new large Balkan power. I cry for you Yugoslavia

News: March, 1919: Rioting is happening in Berlin. Shooting in the streets between Communists and members of the German Freikorps. The armed groups of the ‘Left and Right’ are battling for control of the city. Both sides are getting support from some members of the population because of the news from Versailles that Germany is blamed for the war and must pay for the war.

NEWS: March, 1919: In light of the growing civil war conditions in Germany, fears are heightened that the newly established League of Nations will now have a military structure to intervene in domestic matters. Germans fear invasion by the “League of Nations Army.”

NEWS: March, 1919: Chinese students are rioting in Beijing and Shang Hai. Calling the leaders of the Versailles delegates TRAITORS for having negotiated away the SHANDONG. Lu is hung in effigy.

NEWS: With somewhere between 2 and 2.5 million Germans now living outsideof Germany, major ethnic unrest is underway. Poles are throwing Germans out of their homes….Poles are not heeding their government’s agreements to act with restraint. Germans living in the Czechoslovakia plead for their lives as Czechs too begin to act violently against Germans inside Czechoslovakia. The Czech government is policing as best it can and trying to assure Germans inside CZ. That they are full citizens.

NEWS: Vietnam and France announce a bilateral agreement to give Vietnam full recognition as an independent nation. French investments are guaranteed for 10 years to be respected as such (French). [This might mean the United States will not have a major war in the future].

NEWS: Delegates go missing at the conference and the Great Powers goes ahead with the vote anyway.

NEWS: Greek prime minister is assassinated by Albanians who do not want to be ruled by the ‘dirty’ Greeks.

NEWS: British citizens demand the arrest of the KAISER! Major demos in Trafalgar Square involving some former veterans and families of dead/wounded soldiers. “He’s got away with murder, and now lives in a place in Holland. Where’s the justice?” one angry member of the Parliamentary opposition party has asked. Anti-German hatred extends beyond the war, surprising many observers in England. France too sees Hang-the-Kaiser demos in downtown Paris. Meanwhile parts of Berlin are burning as fighting continues between the right wing Freikorps, and the Communists who have now been joined by some trade union workers groups. The Republican government is standing down and letting the two sides battle it out. Starvation is being reported inside Berlin in the poorest areas, seven months after the end of the conflict.