PUBLISHED BY THE JOINT COMMITTEE OF HENRY FROWDE, HODDER AND STOUGHTON 17 WARWICK SQUARE, NEWGATE STREET LONDON, E.C. 4 $5 A HISTORY OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE OF PARIS EDITED BY H. W. V. TEMPERLEY VOL. I Published under the auspices of the Institute of LONDON HENRY FROWDE HODDER & STOUGHTON OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WARWICK SQUARE, E.C. CONTRIBUTORS TO VOLUMES I AND II BEER, DR. G. L., Late Lecturer in the University of Columbia, U.S.A. BURNS, C. DELISLE, M.A. (Cantab.). BUTLER, J. R. M., M.A., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. CRUTTWELL, C. R., M.A., Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford. DAVIS, H. W. CARLESS, C.B.E., Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. GRAVES, MISS F. M. HAZELTINE, HAROLD D., of Harvard University, U.S.A., Downing Professor of the Laws of England, Cambridge University. OGILVIE, A. G., M.A., Reader in Geography, Manchester University. PERCY, LORD EUSTACE, M.A. (Oxon.). PICKTHORN, K. W. M., M.A., Fellow of Corpus College, Cambridge. RICHMOND, REAR-ADMIRAL H. W.1 SHOTWELL, PROFESSOR J. T., University of Columbia, U.S.A. SUMNER, B. H., M.A., Fellow of All Souls, Oxford. TEMPERLEY, H. W. V., M.A., Reader in Modern History, University of Cambridge. WEBSTER, C. K., M.A., Professor of Modern History, University of Liverpool. WISE, E. F., M.A. (Oxon.), of the Ministry of Food. 1 Volume I only. PREFACE THE History of the Peace Conference, of which this is the first volume, owes its origin to the Institute of International Affairs. The purpose and aim of the latter can perhaps best be stated by giving some extracts from the Report of its Committee. 'There were certain lessons which those who attended the Congress of Paris could scarcely fail to draw from the experience gained there, and the task of preparing a scheme for applying one of them was entrusted to this Committee. Preparations for discussing the terms of peace had long been in train when hostilities suddenly closed in November 1918. At Washington and in London, specialists, recruited by the foreign departments from the Universities and elsewhere, were at work digesting facts and stating the questions which would have to be settled. In January 1919, the staffs with these corps of specialists, strengthened by others released for the work from the navy, army, and air force, were assembled in Paris. The American delegation was mainly housed in the Hotel Crillon, and the British, which was much the largest, in the Majestic. Here were congregated under one roof trained diplomatists, soldiers, sailors, airmen, civil administrators, jurists, financial and economic experts, captains of industry and spokesmen of labour, members of cabinets and parliaments, journalists and publicists of all sorts and kinds. Many of them came from the various Dominions, India, Egypt or the Crown Colonies. 'At meals, and when off duty, there was no convention to forbid discussion of the business in hand. A unique opportunity was thus given to every specialist of grasping the relation of his own particular question to all the others involved, and of seeing its place in the vast problem of reconstruction before the Congress. So great a diversity of minds has seldom been associated on a single task under one roof. Men who never |