Парижская мирная конференция 1919-1920 гг.

Meeting of the Allied Powers after World War I

The Paris Peace Conference was a set of formal and informal diplomatic meetings in 1919 and 1920 after the end of World War I, in which the victorious Allies set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers. Dominated by the leaders of Britain, France, the United States and Italy, the conference resulted in five treaties that rearranged the maps of Europe and parts of Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands, and also imposed financial penalties. Germany, Austria Hungary, Turkey and the other losing nations were not given a voice in the deliberations; this later gave rise to political resentments that lasted for decades. The arrangements made by this conference are considered one of the great watersheds of 20th century geopolitical history. The conference involved diplomats from 32 countries and nationalities. Its major decisions were the creation of the League of Nations and the five peace treaties with the defeated states. Main arrangements agreed upon in the treaties were, among others, the transition of German and Ottoman overseas possessions as "mandates" from the hands of these countries chiefly into the hands of Britain and France; the imposition of reparations upon Germany; and the drawing of new national boundaries, sometimes involving plebiscites, to reflect ethnic boundaries more closely. US President Woodrow Wilson in 1917 commissioned a group of about 150 academics to research topics likely to arise in diplomatic talks on the European stage, and to develop a set of principles to be used for the peace negotiations in order to end World War I. The results of this research were summarized in the so called Fourteen Points document that became the basis for the terms of the German surrender during the conference, as it had earlier been the basis of the German government's negotiations in the Armistice of 11 November 1918. The main result of the conference was the Treaty of Versailles with Germany; Article 231 of that treaty placed the whole guilt for the war on "the aggression of Germany and her allies". That provision proved very humiliating for German leaders, armies and citizens alike, and set the stage for the expensive reparations that Germany was intended to pay, only a small portion of which had been delivered when it stopped paying after 1931. The five great powers at that time, France, Britain, Italy, Japan and the United States, controlled the Conference. The "Big Four" leaders were French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, US President Woodrow Wilson, and Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando. Together with teams of diplomats and jurists, they met informally 145 times and agreed upon all major decisions before they were ratified. The conference began on 18 January 1919. With respect to its end, Professor Michael Neiberg noted, "Although the senior statesmen stopped working personally on the conference in June 1919, the formal peace process did not really end until July 1923, when the Treaty of Lausanne was signed." The entire process is often referred to as the "Versailles Conference", although only the signing of the first treaty took place in the historic palace; the negotiations occurred at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris.

A central issue of the conference was the disposition of the overseas colonies of Germany (Austria Hungary did not have major colonies, and the Ottoman Empire was a separate issue). The British dominions wanted their reward for their sacrifice. Australia wanted New Guinea, New Zealand wanted Samoa, and South Africa wanted South West Africa. Wilson wanted the League to administer all German colonies until they were ready for independence. Lloyd George realized he needed to support his dominions and so he proposed a compromise: there be three types of mandates. Mandates for the Turkish provinces were one category and would be divided up between Britain and France. The second category, of New Guinea, Samoa, and South West Africa, were located so close to responsible supervisors that the mandates could hardly be given to anyone except Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Finally, the African colonies would need the careful supervision as "Class B" mandates, which could be provided only by experienced colonial powers: Britain, France, and Belgium although Italy and Portugal received small amounts of territory. Wilson and the others finally went along with the solution. The dominions received "Class C Mandates" to the colonies that they wanted. Japan obtained mandates over German possessions north of the Equator. Wilson wanted no mandates for the United States, but his main advisor, Colonel House, was deeply involved in awarding the others. Wilson was especially offended by Australian demands and had some memorable clashes with Hughes (the Australian Prime Minister), this the most famous:

The dominion governments were not originally given separate invitations to the conference and had been expected to send representatives as part of the British delegation. Convinced that Canada had become a nation on the battlefields of Europe, Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden demanded that it have a separate seat at the conference. That was initially opposed not only by Britain but also by the United States, which saw any Dominion delegation as an extra British vote. Borden responded by pointing out that since Canada had lost nearly 60,000 men, a far larger proportion of its men than the 50,000 American men lost, it had at least the right to the representation of a "minor" power. Lloyd George eventually relented and persuaded the reluctant Americans to accept the presence of delegations from Canada, India, Australia, Newfoundland, New Zealand, and South Africa, and that those countries receive their seats in the League of Nations. Canada, despite its huge losses in the war, did not ask for either reparations or mandates. The Australian delegation, led by Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes fought greatly for its demands: reparations, the annexation of German New Guinea, and the rejection of the Racial Equality Proposal. He said that he had no objection to the proposal if it was stated in unambiguous terms that it did not confer any right to enter Australia. He was concerned by the increasing power of Japan. Within months of the declaration of war in 1914, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand had seized all of Germany's possessions in the Far East and the Pacific Ocean. The British had given their blessing for Japan to occupy German possessions, but Hughes was alarmed by that policy.

French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau controlled his delegation, and his chief goal was to weaken Germany militarily, strategically, and economically. Having personally witnessed two German attacks on French soil in the last 40 years, he was adamant for Germany not to be permitted to attack France again. Particularly, Clemenceau sought an American and British joint guarantee of French security in the event of another German attack. Clemenceau also expressed skepticism and frustration with Wilson's Fourteen Points and complained: "Mr. Wilson bores me with his fourteen points. Why, God Almighty has only ten!" Wilson gained some favour by signing a mutual defense treaty with France, but he did not present it to his country's government for ratification and so it never took effect. Another possible French policy was to seek a rapprochement with Germany. In May 1919 the diplomat René Massigli was sent on several secret missions to Berlin. During his visits, he offered, on behalf of his government, to revise the territorial and economic clauses of the upcoming peace treaty. Massigli spoke of the desirability of "practical, verbal discussions" between French and German officials that would lead to a "Franco German collaboration." The Germans rejected Massigli's offers because they believed that the intention was to trick them into accepting the Treaty of Versailles unchanged; also, the German Foreign Minister, Count Ulrich von Brockdorff Rantzau, thought that the United States was more likely to reduce the severity of the penalties than France was. Orlando, unable to speak English, conducted negotiations jointly with his Foreign Minister Sidney Sonnino, a Protestant of British origins who spoke the language. Together, they worked primarily to secure the partition of the Habsburg monarchy. At the conference, Italy gained Istria, Trieste, Trentino, and South Tyrol. Most of Dalmatia was given to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Fiume remained disputed territory, causing a nationalist outrage. Orlando obtained other results, such as the permanent membership of Italy in the League of Nations and the promise by the Allies to transfer British Jubaland and the French Aozou strip to Italian colonies. Protectorates over Albania and Antalya were also recognized, but nationalists considered the war to be a mutilated victory, and Orlando was ultimately forced to abandon the conference and to resign. Francesco Saverio Nitti took his place and signed the treaties. There was a general disappointment in Italy, which the nationalists and fascists used to build the idea that Italy was betrayed by the Allies and refused what had been promised. That was a cause for the general rise of Italian fascism. Orlando refused to see the war as a mutilated victory and replied to nationalists calling for a greater expansion, "Italy today is a great state on par with the great historic and contemporary states. This is, for me, our main and principal expansion."

Japan sent a large delegation, headed by the former Prime Minister, Marquis Saionji Kinmochi. It was originally one of the "big five" but relinquished that role because of its slight interest in European affairs. Instead, it focused on two demands: the inclusion of its Racial Equality Proposal in the League's Covenant and Japanese territorial claims with respect to former German colonies: Shantung (including Kiaochow) and the Pacific islands north of the Equator, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, the Mariana Islands, and the Carolines. The former Foreign Minister Baron Makino Nobuaki was de facto chief. Saionji's role was symbolic and limited because of his history of ill health. The Japanese delegation became unhappy after it had received only half of the rights of Germany, and it then walked out of the conference.

The Japanese claim to Shantung faced strong challenges from the Chinese patriotic student group. In 1914, at the outset of the war, Japan seized the territory that had been granted to Germany in 1897 and seized the German islands in the Pacific north of the equator. In 1917, Japan made secret agreements with Britain, France, and Italy to guarantee their annexation of these territories. With Britain, there was an agreement to support British annexation of the Pacific Islands south of the Equator. Despite a generally pro Chinese view by the American delegation, Article 156 of the Treaty of Versailles transferred German concessions in the Jiaozhou Bay, China, to Japan rather than returning sovereign authority to China. The leader of the Chinese delegation, Lu Zhengxiang, demanded a reservation be inserted, before he would sign the treaty. After the reservation was denied, the treaty was signed by all the delegations except that of China. Chinese outrage over that provision led to demonstrations known as the May Fourth Movement. The Pacific Islands north of the equator became a class C mandate, administered by Japan.

Until Wilson's arrival in Europe in December 1918, no sitting American president had ever visited the continent. Wilson's 1918 Fourteen Points had helped win many hearts and minds as the war ended, not only in America but all over Europe, including Germany, as well as its allies in and the former subjects of the Ottoman Empire. Wilson's diplomacy and his Fourteen Points had essentially established the conditions for the armistices that had brought an end to World War I. Wilson felt it to be his duty and obligation to the people of the world to be a prominent figure at the peace negotiations. High hopes and expectations were placed on him to deliver what he had promised for the postwar era. In doing so, Wilson ultimately began to lead the foreign policy of the United States towards interventionism, a move that has been strongly resisted in some United States circles ever since. Once Wilson arrived, however, he found "rivalries, and conflicting claims previously submerged." He worked mostly at trying to influence both the French, led by Georges Clemenceau, and the British, led by David Lloyd George, in their treatment of Germany and its allies in Europe and the former Ottoman Empire in the Middle East. Wilson's attempts to gain acceptance of his Fourteen Points ultimately failed; France and Britain each refused to adopt specific points as well as certain core principles. Several of the Fourteen Points conflicted with the desires of European powers. The United States did not consider it fair or warranted that Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles declared Germany solely responsible for the war. (The United States did not sign peace treaties with the Central Powers until 1921 under President Warren Harding, when separate documents were signed with Germany, Austria, and Hungary respectively.) In the Middle East, negotiations were complicated by competing aims and claims, and the new mandate system. The United States expressed a hope to establish a more liberal and diplomatic world as stated in the Fourteen Points, in which democracy, sovereignty, liberty and self determination would be respected. France and Britain, on the other hand, already controlled empires through which they wielded power over their subjects around the world, and aspired to maintain and expand their colonial power rather than relinquish it. In light of the previously secret Sykes–Picot Agreement and following the adoption of the mandate system on the Arab provinces of the former Ottoman Empire, the conference heard statements from competing Zionists and Arabs. Wilson then recommended an international commission of inquiry to ascertain the wishes of the local inhabitants. The idea, first accepted by Great Britain and France, was later rejected, but became the purely American King–Crane Commission which toured all Syria and Palestine during the summer of 1919 taking statements and sampling opinion. A pro Zionist joint resolution on Palestine was passed by the United States Congress in September 1922. France and Britain tried to appease Wilson by consenting to the establishment of his League of Nations. However, because isolationist sentiment in the United States was strong, and because some of the articles in the League Charter conflicted with the US Constitution, the United States never ratified the Treaty of Versailles or joined the League that Wilson had helped to create to further peace by diplomacy, rather than war, and the conditions that can breed peace.

Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos took part in the conference as Greece's chief representative. Wilson was said to have placed Venizelos first for personal ability among all delegates in Paris. Venizelos proposed Greek expansion in Thrace and Asia Minor, which had been part of the defeated Kingdom of Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire; Northern Epirus, Imvros; and Tenedos for the realization of the Megali Idea. He also reached the Venizelos Tittoni agreement with the Italians on the cession of the Dodecanese (apart from Rhodes) to Greece. For the Pontic Greeks, he proposed a common Pontic Armenian state. As a liberal politician, Venizelos was a strong supporter of the Fourteen Points and the League of Nations.

The Chinese delegation was led by Lu Zhengxiang, who was accompanied by Wellington Koo and Cao Rulin. Koo demanded Germany's concessions on Shandong be returned to China. He also called for an end to imperialist institutions such as extraterritoriality, legation guards, and foreign leaseholds. Despite American support and the ostensible spirit of self determination, the Western powers refused his claims but instead transferred the German concessions to Japan. That sparked widespread student protests in China on 4 May, later known as the May Fourth Movement, which eventually pressured the government into refusing to sign the Treaty of Versailles. Thus, the Chinese delegation at the conference was the only one not to sign the treaty at the signing ceremony.

While Russia was formally excluded from the Conference although it had fought against the Central Powers for three years. However the Russian Provincial Council (chaired by Prince Lvov), the successor to the Russian Constituent Assembly and the political arm of the Russian White movement attended the conference and was represented by the former tsarist minister Sergey Sazonov, The Council suggested all matters relating to territorial claims or demands for autonomy within the former Russian Empire be referred to a new All Russian Constituent Assembly.

Delegations from the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, led respectively by Jaan Poska, Jānis Čakste and Augustinas Voldemaras, also participated in the conference, and successfully achieved international recognition of the independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Ukraine had its best opportunity to win recognition and support from foreign powers at the conference. At a meeting of the Big Five on 16 January, Lloyd George called Ukrainian leader Symon Petliura (1874–1926) an adventurer and dismissed Ukraine as an anti Bolshevik stronghold. Sir Eyre Crowe, British Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs, spoke against a union of East Galicia and Poland. The British cabinet never decided whether to support a united or dismembered Russia. The United States was sympathetic to a strong, united Russia, as a counterpoise to Japan, but Britain feared a threat to India. Petliura appointed Count Tyshkevich as his representative to the Vatican, and Pope Benedict XV recognized Ukrainian independence, but Ukraine was effectively ignored.

A delegation of the Belarusian Democratic Republic, under Prime Minister Anton Łuckievič, also participated in the conference, and attempted to gain international recognition of the independence of Belarus. On the way to the conference, the delegation was received by Czechoslovak President Tomáš Masaryk in Prague. During the conference, Łuckievič had meetings with the exiled foreign minister of Admiral Alexander Kolchak's Russian government, Sergey Sazonov, and Polish Prime Minister Ignacy Jan Paderewski.

At the insistence of Wilson, the Big Four required Poland to sign a treaty on 28 June 1919 that guaranteed minority rights in the new nation. Poland signed under protest and made little effort to enforce the specified rights for Germans, Jews, Ukrainians, and other minorities. Similar treaties were signed by Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia, Greece, Austria, Hungary, and Bulgaria and later by Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. Estonia had already given cultural autonomy to minorities in its declaration of independence. Finland and Germany were not asked to sign a minority treaty. In Poland, the key provisions were to become fundamental laws, which would override any national legal codes or legislation. The new country pledged to assure "full and complete protection of life and liberty to all individuals without distinction of birth, nationality, language, race, or religion." Freedom of religion was guaranteed to everyone. Most residents were given citizenship, but there was considerable ambiguity on who was covered. The treaty guaranteed basic civil, political, and cultural rights and required all citizens to be equal before the law and enjoy identical rights of citizens and workers. Polish was to be the national language, but the treaty provided for minority languages to be freely used privately, in commerce, in religion, in the press, at public meetings, and before all courts. Minorities were to be permitted to establish and control at their own expense private charities, churches, social institutions, and schools, without interference from the government, which was required to set up German language public schools in districts that had been German before the war. All education above the primary level was to be conducted exclusively in the national language. Article 12 was the enforcement clause and gave the Council of the League of Nations the responsibility to monitor and enforce the treaties.

The three South Caucasian republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia and the Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus all sent a delegation to the conference. Their attempts to gain protection from threats posed by the ongoing Russian Civil War largely failed since none of the major powers was interested in taking a mandate over the Caucasian territories. After a series of delays, the three South Caucasian countries ultimately gained de facto recognition from the Supreme Council of the Allied powers but only after all European troops had been withdrawn from the Caucasus, except for a British contingent in Batumi. Georgia was recognized de facto on 12 January 1920, followed by Azerbaijan the same day and Armenia on 19 January 1920. The Allied leaders decided to limit their assistance to the Caucasian republics to the supply of arms, munitions, and food. The Armenian delegation included Avetis Aharonyan, Hamo Ohanjanyan, and Armen Garo. The Azerbaijani mission was headed by Alimardan Topchubashev and included Mammad Hasan Hajinski, Akbar agha Sheykhulislamov, Ahmet Ağaoğlu and Mahammad Amin Rasulzade, first president of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. The Georgian delegation included Nikolay Chkheidze, Irakli Tsereteli, and Zurab Avalishvili.

After the conference's decision to separate the former Arab provinces from the Ottoman Empire and to apply the new mandate system to them, the World Zionist Organization submitted its draft resolutions for consideration by the conference. The February 1919 statement included the following main points: recognition of Jewish "title" over the land, a declaration of the borders (significantly larger than in the prior Sykes Picot agreement), and League of Nations sovereignty under British mandate. An offshoot of the conference was convened at San Remo in 1920, leading to the creation of the Mandate for Palestine, which was to come into force in 1923.

Up to 300 000 Assyrians died during the Assyrian genocide in the years before the conference. Several delegations of Assyrians participated to fulfill wishes of a free Assyria. The delegations came from different parts of the world. Syriac Orthodox Bishop of Syria Aphrem Barsoum (b. 1887), later Patriarch of the church, has often been depicted as a leader of the "Assyro Chaldean delegation". An Assyrian delegation from the United States was also present, representing the Assyrian National Association in America. A delegation from Constantinople represented the Assyro Chaldean National Council, formed in 1919 after Syriac Orthodox, Chaldean Catholics and Syriac Catholics had united and declared their basic political and national unity under the "Assyro Chaldean" name. There was also one delegation from Caucasia and one from Persia.

During the Peace Conference, a delegation of Aromanians participated in order to fulfill autonomist wishes for the Aromanian people in the same vein as the Samarina Republic attempt two years earlier, but failed to accomplish any recognition for the self rule desires of their people.

An unprecedented aspect of the conference was concerted pressure brought to bear on delegates by a committee of women, who sought to establish and entrench women's fundamental social, economic, and political rights, such as that of suffrage, within the peace framework. Although they were denied seats at the Paris Conference, the leadership of Marguerite de Witt Schlumberger, the president of the French Union for Women's Suffrage, caused an Inter Allied Women's Conference (IAWC) to be convened, which met from 10 February to 10 April 1919.

British official artists William Orpen and Augustus John were present at the Conference. World's End (1940), the first novel in Upton Sinclair's Pulitzer Prize winning Lanny Budd series, describes the political machinations and consequences of the Paris Peace Conference through much of the book's second half, with Sinclair's narrative including many historically accurate characters and events. The first two books of novelist Robert Goddard's The Wide World trilogy (The Ways of the World and The Corners of the Globe) are centered around the diplomatic machinations which form the background to the conference. Paris 1919 (1973), the third studio album by Welsh musician John Cale, is named after the Paris Peace Conference, and its title song explores various aspects of early 20th century culture and history in Western Europe. A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia (1992) is a British television film starring Ralph Fiennes as T. E. Lawrence and Alexander Siddig as Emir Faisal, depicting their struggles to secure an independent Arab state at the conference. "Paris, May 1919" is a 1993 episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, written by Jonathan Hales and directed by David Hare, in which Indiana Jones is shown working as a translator with the American delegation at the Paris Peace Conference.