VERSAILLES CONFERENCE TIMELINE December 14, 1918: Wilson arrives in Paris but soon leaves to tour England and Italy January 10-20, 1919: Foch & Clemenceau propose independent Rhenish buffer state January 25: Conference agrees unanimously to establish a League of Nations January 30: Wilson promises Orlando to accept Italian annexation of Trentino & Trieste February 14-March 4: Wilson returns to USA but cannot persuade Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge to support Covenant March 24: Big Four begin talks over German borders April 28: Big Four adopt Rhineland compromise June 28: Signing of the Treaty of Versailles

Woodrow Wilson despised his predecessor, William Howard Taft, as a champion of “dollar diplomacy.” But Taft DID support international courts of arbitration, and in 1916, 70% of U.S. voters supported a “League of Nations.” Teddy Roosevelt was almost the only leader to champion unrestricted national sovereignty.

France and Britain had promised Italy the Trentino, with 230,000 German-speakers, the mostly Italian port of Trieste, and Istria & Dalmatia, with 1.3 million South Slavs. Wilson and Orlando quarreled over Fiume….

Austrian ethnographic map from 1910 Ochre= Italians Lt. green= Croats Dk. green, Slovenes See Nicolson, pp

“Can It Survive?” (Literary Digest, July 1919) On March 3, 1919, Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge had published an open letter rejecting any treaty that included the Covenant

The Big Four argued about German borders from March 24 to April 28

The impact of the Treaty of Versailles on Germany (France occupied the Rhineland until 1930, the Saarland until 1935)

Sir William Orpen, “The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors, Versailles, 28 June 1919”

Delegation of French wounded at the signing ceremony for the Treaty of Versailles, 28 June 1919

KEY DECISIONS AT VERSAILLES IN 1919  National self-determination for Poles, “Czechoslovaks”, “Yugoslavs”, Romanians, Latvians, Lithuanians, & Estonians  Formation of a “League of Nations” dedicated to “collective security” (but key votes must be unanimous)  Italy gains the south Tirol but must renounce Dalmatia; the status of Fiume remains disputed  Great Britain gains control of Germany’s African colonies, Palestine, Jordan, and Iraq as “League of Nations Mandates”; France gains Syria, Lebanon, and Cameroon  Germany must pay war reparations equal to the entire cost of the war and reduce its army to 100,000 men

European language groups, 1910 Postwar borders, 1921

“Red Parliament! Vote Social Democratic” (Budapest, 1919) Bela Kun led the Soviet Republic of Hungary from March to August 1919

Hungarian nationalist poster from 1919: The red worker is horrified because his uprising has smashed Hungary to pieces

Admiral Miklos Horthy, “Regent” of Hungary,

“Be Vigilant!” (1920): The threats include capitalist minions in Finnland and the Baltic Republics and Ukrainian nationalists

Polish peasants with their scythes volunteer to fight in the Russo-Polish War, 1920

The front line in the Russo-Polish War in June 1920, at the height of Polish success (final border in black)

Field Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, Polish chief of state, ; dictator,

Gabriele d’Annunzio, the Italian poet and war hero who led volunteers into Fiume in September 1919, the first “duce”

Fascist Black Shirts March on Rome, October 1922

Benito Mussolini ( ): ex-Marxist, combat veteran, founder of the Fascist Party, Prime Minister of Italy ( ), il duce. He advocated rule by the “aristocracy of the trenches.”

Greek Prime Minister Venizelos and “Megali Hellas” (1920)

General Mustapha Kemal at Gallipoli in 1915, later known as “Kemal Ataturk”

Turkish cavalry moves toward the front in the Greco-Turkish War of million Greeks fled Asia Minor, & 500,000 Muslims fled Greece

Czechoslovakia was the only successful new democracy (the arrival of Thomas Masaryk in Prague, December 21, 1918)

Already by 1922, it was clear that only the green countries supported the Versailles settlement