account of the Congress of Berlin (No. 154 of the Peace Hand-books). At Paris, in 1919, there were plenipotentiaries of Five Great Powers, the United States of America, the British Empire, France, Italy, and Japan, described as the 'Principal Allied and Associated Powers'; and with them, constituting the full assembly or Plenum of the Conference, were the plenipotentiaries of Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, the Hedjaz, Honduras, Liberia, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, the Serbo-Croat-Slovene State, Siam, Czecho-Slovakia, and Uruguay, being minor Powers that had either declared war against, or broken off relations with, the Central Powers, or been recognised by the Entente Powers, as constituting with the Principal Powers already mentioned 'the Allied and Associated Powers.' Beside these, various other claimants laid their views before the Conference as opportunity offered, such as the Zionist Jews, the Armenians, the Esthonians, Lithuanians and Letts, the Ruthenians and the Georgians, and other subject nationalities of the former Russian Empire, with the Syrians and Lebanese, the Ukrainians, the Aaland Islanders and the Schleswigers. Owing to the difficulty of transacting business in such a large gathering and in public, the Conference was split up into a number of Commissions. The Conference as a whole met only seven times; at Vienna there was never a meeting of the whole Congress.

At Vienna there were present the Emperors of Austria and Russia, and the King of Prussia, but they did not attend the meetings of plenipotentiaries, at which they were represented respectively, Austria by Metternich, Russia by Razoumoffski, Stackelberg, and Nesselrode, Prussia by Hardenberg. Alexander I completely directed and controlled the action of his plenipotentiaries. Talleyrand was there for France, and Castlereagh, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and a vigorous personality, for Great Britain. At the Conference of Paris the United States of America was represented by the President, perhaps a more powerful personage than even a Russian Emperor; the British Empire by the Prime Minister, Mr Lloyd George; France by M. Clemenceau, President of the Council and Minister of War; Italy by her Prime Minister, Signor Orlando;

and Japan by Marquis Saionji, a former President of the Council of Ministers.

It was on Jan. 12, 1919, that the Conference opened with a meeting of the Four Great Powers of America and Europe and their Foreign Ministers, and on the 13th Japanese Representatives were added. Thus was formed the Council of Ten, of which M. Clemenceau was formally elected President in conformity with precedent. This lasted until the middle of March, when it was found that it was too large a body to deal effectively with all the business, and it had also been found impossible to keep its decisions from publication in the press. So the Council of Four was substituted for it. This body consisted of the American President and the Prime Ministers of France, Great Britain, and Italy. During the absence of Signor Orlando between April 24 and June 20 it became a Council of Three. It had a secretariat, on which the Five Great Powers were represented and which recorded the conversations between the members of the Council of Ten, and of the Council of Four which replaced it; but these records have not been published, and possibly never will be. Only a few Committees were at first set up, firstly the League of Nations Commission, next others on the Responsibility for the War, on Reparation, on International Labour Legislation, and on the International Régime for Ports, Waterways, and Railways.

The question of the official language caused some difficulty. At previous Congresses and Conferences French had as a matter of course been recognised as the sole language. This time the Anglo-Saxon Powers maintained the necessity of giving an equal position to the English text of documents, an essential consideration in a treaty which had to be submitted to the United States Senate for its advice and consent before it could be ratified by the President. The Italian delegation asserted the right of Italian to rank as official if to English was accorded equality with French. In the end both the French and English texts of the treaty with Germany were declared to be authentic, and so also in the case of the Treaty of Peace with Poland. The remaining peace treaties were drawn up in the three languages, the French text to prevail in case of divergence,

except in the Covenant of the League of Nations and the Part entitled Labour, where the English and French texts were declared to be of equal force. A similar provision is contained in the Treaties of Sept. 10, 1919, with Czecho-Slovakia and the Serb-Croat-Slovene State, and the treaty of Dec. 9, 1919, with Rumania. Of all these treaties only a single copy was signed, to remain deposited in the archives of the French Government, authenticated copies being furnished to each of the Signatory Powers.

In addition to the Committees already mentioned, a Supreme Economic Council was formed, Territorial Commissions were set up for Czecho-Slovakia, Poland, for Rumania and Yugo-Slavia, for Greece and Albania, for Belgium and Denmark, besides Military, Naval, and Air Commissions. Perhaps the most important of all was the Drafting Commission, on which the five principal Powers were represented. Subordinate to this were the Economic and Financial Drafting Commissions. Besides all this machinery, a Council of Five was formed out of the Ministers for Foreign Affairs, which followed the procedure of the original Council of Ten. This was the organ for the insertion in the Treaty of clauses omitted by an oversight, and while the Four were employed in the negotiation with Germany was able to proceed with the discussion of the Austrian Treaty.

Mention must also be made of the rules which were drawn up by representatives of the Foreign Offices for conducting the work of the Conference, including the number of plenipotentiary Delegates to be allowed to each Power. It seems that these regulations, published in The Times' of Jan. 20, 1919, governed the proceedings at plenary meetings of the Conference, and that the Councils of Four and of Three discussed the questions that came before them independently of any formal rules. A very useful account of these matters is to be found in No. 139 of the documents published by the American Association for International Conciliation.

With the completion of the draft Treaty with Germany it may be held that the Conference had come to a close so far as that Power was concerned, and that with the delivery of the text to the German Delegation on May 7 it had developed into a Congress. Three weeks were

allowed to the Germans for the presentation of their comments, which were to be made in writing, no oral discussion being allowed. Their final counter-proposals, a very bulky document, were delivered on May 30. They maintained that the draft treaty was in contradiction with President Wilson's Fourteen Points and his subsequent declarations, which they regarded as the legal basis, with previous assurances of the Entente statesmen and the general ideas of International Law. Careful consideration was given to the German arguments and the reply of the Allies and Associated Powers was handed over on June 16. It left the draft treaty practically intact, though important concessions had been made. The History' (1, cap. 9) gives a detailed discussion of the German assertions; and Part IV of that chapter, which contains a complete analysis of the addresses and speeches of President Wilson in 1918, and of Notes exchanged between him and the German Government in October and November 1918, should be carefully studied. The conclusion that the Armistice Agreement and the Peace Treaty are in complete conformity with the basis accepted by the Entente Powers will be seen to be irrefutable. The Treaty as it was signed on June 28 has been examined, in all its more important parts and especially in the territorial clauses, in this 'Review' for July 1919.

The Treaty of Vienna (1815) was signed by the principal belligerents, and to it were annexed all the ancillary treaties and particular agreements entered into during the Congress, which together with the main treaty formed a whole binding on all the parties to it. To have attempted to frame on the present occasion a single instrument comprising the terms to be imposed not only on Germany but on each of her allies, and the subsidiary treaties with the new states formed from the territories of the former Austro-Hungarian and Turkish Empires and a resuscitated Poland, would have proved a hopeless task. To ensure the effect produced by the signature of a single treaty on the Vienna model, the following article was inserted in Part xv, Miscellaneous Provisions, of the German Treaty :

'Germany undertakes to recognise the full force of the Treaties of Peace and Additional Conventions which may be

concluded by the Allied and Associated Powers with the Powers who fought on the side of Germany, and to recognise whatever dispositions may be made concerning the territories of the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, of the Kingdom of Bulgaria and of the Ottoman Empire, and to recognise the new States within their frontiers as there laid down.'

The same is the wording, mutatis mutandis, of Arts. 89 and 90 of the Treaty of Peace with Austria, similar provisions being inserted in the Treaties with Bulgaria, Hungary, and Turkey. In this manner the same result appears to have been obtained as would have been secured by the signature of a single comprehensive treaty, covering all the achieved purposes of the Peace Conference.

6

The German Treaty naturally served as a general model for the Peace Treaties with the remaining enemy belligerents. A study of Chapter VI of Vol. II of the History,' and especially of its Part VI, p. 341, ought to convince any impartial reader that the Peace Treaty with Germany, and the remaining Peace Treaties, which follow the same lines, are, with one exception, in accordance with the agreed basis of peace, constituted by President Wilson's Fourteen Points and subsequent addresses, as modified by the Memorandum of the Allies of Nov. 5, 1918. By this they reserved to themselves complete freedom on the subject of what is so ambiguously called the 'freedom of the seas,' and stated that by the President's declaration that the invaded territories must be restored as well as evacuated and freed,' they understood that compensation will be made by Germany for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allies and their property by the aggression of Germany by land, by sea, and from the air.' President Wilson stated that he is in complete agreement with the interpretation set forth in the last paragraph of the memorandum above quoted.' According to the 'Matin' of June 6, after examining the German counter-proposals in detail he declared as follows: Our Treaty violates none of my principles. If I thought otherwise I should not hesitate to confess it and should try to retrieve this error, but the Treaty we have drawn up is entirely in accord with my Fourteen Points.'