Chapter 378： Paris Peace Conference (middle)

..Romanian Eagle

Things come fast and go fast. When the peace meeting started, no one paid attention to Romania. Each delegation is fighting for its own country, which belongs to its own maximum interest.

The fiercest battle is undoubtedly composed of the top five leaders and foreign ministers of the United States, France, Britain, Italy, and Japan. It is also called a ten-person meeting. All major issues are discussed and decided by them. Because of the rules of the meeting, the whole meeting is divided into three forms: the highest meeting, special meeting and plenary meeting. The Supreme Council is composed of five countries: the United States, Britain, France, Italy, and Japan.

Since the discussion is about the interests of the defeated allies, in addition to the main dispute between China and Japan about Germany's interests in China, its rights in Europe and Africa are also the most intensely contested.

Among them is Europe, where the four countries of the United States, Britain, France, and Italy are in endless quarrels every time they negotiate.

The main purpose of the Italian representative is to obtain Fiume Port so that it can become Italy's expansion base in the Balkans. However, Italy's poor strength can only be regarded as a second-rate country compared with the United States, Britain and France. In addition, it had two boats at the beginning of the war and did not play much role after entering the war. Therefore, Orlando's request was rejected by the United States, Britain and France. Before joining the war, Britain, France, and Russia agreed to give Italy rights to Fiume Port and Darumasia after the war, but they were rejected by the United States, Britain and France after winning.

At the top five meeting in February, Orlando was unable to return to the country without obtaining Fiume, and even threatened that there would be riots in the country, while the United States, Britain and France still opposed his request. Orlando left the venue angrily, but the other participants ignored it. Orlando was helpless, and after a few days quietly returned to the venue, continuing to play a role as a runner.

In the United States, President Wilson is particularly fascinated by the plan to establish the League of Nations, not only because it is closely related to his political reputation and historical status, but also as the fundamental plan and the only way to replace Britain and France's dominance of the world.

Therefore, when he spoke for the first time at the Paris Peace Conference, he proposed to give priority to discussing the issue of the alliance of nations, emphasizing that the alliance of nations and the peace treaty with Germany should become a unified and indivisible whole, binding on any country. But Britain and France are not interested in this. They advocated separating the two and prioritized discussions on the partition of territories and war reparations. The two opposing parties insist on their own words and do not give in to each other.

Later, after four days of arguing, the ten-member committee decided to hand over the issue of the League of Nations to a special committee headed by Wilson for study. The committee was responsible for formulating the draft of the League of Nations agreement. The British and French conspiracy is to use this to erase the American plan from the agenda. For this reason, they recommend that all the representatives of small and medium-sized countries also participate in the committee, making the committee large, bloated, inefficient, and delaying time.

Before the special committee started its work, Britain and France proposed to discuss the partition of the German colony. Wilson woke up like a dream, dissatisfied with the tactics of Britain and France, and once again proposed the Committee of Ten to discuss the issue of the League of Nations.

He said: "We cannot give the world the impression that the major powers first carve up areas in the world that are unable to defend themselves, and then establish the League of Nations."

As a result, the ten-member committee confronted again. The meeting was very tense, Wilson was fierce, Lloyd George of the United Kingdom and Clemenceau of France were also fierce. Under this circumstance, Wilson said angrily that he would withdraw from the meeting without first confirming the alliance agreement.

The sophisticated Lloyd George retorted: "Only God knows when the complex process of making the League of Nations contract will be completed."

Wilson replied: "As long as no one deliberately makes trouble, the committee's work can be over for 10 days."

The threat from the United States worked, and Britain and France had to make concessions. The facts are as Wilson said, after a series of intense consultations, the special committee finally worked out a draft of the League of Nations agreement on December 18th.

On December 19, Wilson reported the contents of the draft to the plenary meeting in a solemn atmosphere, and was unanimously approved. In the first round of the struggle, Wilson barely prevailed.

On the British side, Prime Minister George was very scheming, and the city was deep. In order to maintain the faltering supremacy of Britain, he did his utmost in the Paris Peace Conference. He sometimes stood with France against the United States, and sometimes formed alliances with the United States to suppress France. When the dispute between the United States and France was overwhelming, he often circumvented it as a mediator, thus reaping a lot of benefits for the United Kingdom.

For France, it was proposed by Prime Minister Clemenceau, Chairman of the General Assembly. France not only wants to take back Alsace and Lorraine, but also moves the French border east to the Rhine, and advocates the merger of the German provinces on the left bank of the Rhine into an independent country. France's blatant attempt to weaken Germany to the greatest extent possible and establish France's hegemonic ambitions on the European continent was rejected by Britain, France and Italy from the very beginning. They are not trying to find a hegemon for Europe in defeating Germany.

In the face of fierce opposition from the United States, Britain and Italy, Clemenceau had to give up this condition. Although he was forced to give up the requirement to establish the Rhine State, in exchange, he offered to occupy the left bank of the Rhine by the Allied Forces for 30 years and hand over the Saar mining area to France. The Saar mining area mentioned by Clemenceau is the city of Saar near the French border, where there is a huge coal seam industrial and transportation center. Its factories produce iron and steel, sugar, beer, pottery, optical instruments, machinery and construction materials. In particular, the coal industry here can meet one-third of the demand in the Ruhr area, so in order to further pinch the strength of Germany, Clemenceau raised the Saar issue.

US President Wilson was very annoyed by this new request from France. He said impatiently: "He never heard of another Thrall problem."

In response, Clemenceau furiously attacked Wilson as a pro-German element, and declared strongly: "No French prime minister will sign a treaty that does not incorporate Saar into France."

But Wilson did not show weakness. He mocked Clemenceau coldly and said: "You mean that if France can't get what it wants, it will refuse to cooperate with us? In this way, you want me to return. Home."

Faced with threats from creditors, Clemenceau replied: "I don't want you to go home, I personally want to go back."

Regarding Thrall's question, they just broke up. In the face of the dispute between the United States and France, the old and slick Lloyd George fully used his own methods. He first formed an alliance with President Wilson on this issue, and then negotiated privately with Clemenceau not to allow the United States to leave the peace conference, implying that it could transfer Thrall from France to establishing a time mandate.

Clemenceau was somewhat incapable of the pressure of the Anglo-American alliance. Considering that France lacked the support of the United Kingdom and the United States, he was unable to maintain European order, so he agreed to the conditions given by Prime Minister George. However, the two parties had a dispute over the time of the mandate.

France believes that the time should be 25 years, while Britain and the United States believe that this time is too long and will provoke Germany to provoke new disputes in Europe in the future, so the recommendation is 10 years. After another argument, they finally gave a 15-year period acceptable to both parties. After 15 years, the Saar mining area held a popular referendum to determine its own ownership.

In order to completely weaken Germany, France also put forward three requirements: One is to establish a powerful Poland including Poznan and Danzig in the east of Germany. The reason is to deal with the red threat from Russia.

The second is to make every effort to dig out the Germans' pockets and demand that Germany must compensate 600 to 800 billion gold marks for war losses.

The third is to completely destroy the German military machinery, especially to limit the number of the German army and the production of munitions.

These requirements of France have been opposed to varying degrees by Britain and the United States. The United Kingdom and the United States believe that the establishment of a new Poland in accordance with France's blueprint means the strengthening of France's position in Europe and therefore they do not agree with France's proposition.

Lloyd George said to Clemenceau: "Don't build a new Alsace-Lorraine."

The United Kingdom and the United States do not want to use Germany's compensation to strengthen France. In particular, the United States is more worried that France's excessive demands will kill the hen that lays Germany.

Lloyd George proposed that compensation should not be excessive and should only be borne by the generation who participated in the war. Wilson advocated that the amount of compensation should not be determined first, but that the issue could be referred to a special committee to study and resolve.

Regarding the issue of restricting German armaments, Britain and the United States and France have different intentions. Their main interest is to weaken Germany's naval power, while they advocate leniency towards the army and reserve a force necessary for Germany to suppress the Bolsheviks.

When talking about the establishment of Poland, Prime Minister Bretianu, who has been watching this drama, is also involved. Because the Polish delegation proposed that the area of ​​Lviv currently occupied by Romania has always been a gathering place for Poles, it hopes that Romania will teach the area to Poland instead of the current Ukrainian government. Therefore, Prime Minister Bretianu was also fortunate to join the discussion on the Polish issue.

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