Chapter 82 Paris Peace Conference

November 11, 1918 was the day the Armistice Agreement of the First World War was signed.The delegation headed by the German Foreign Minister and the commander-in-chief of the Allied Forces, French Marshal Foch, drew the final end of the First World War on a train at the Leiton station in the Compiègne forest northeast of Paris.The conditions put forward by the armistice treaty are very harsh. In addition to requiring the German army to withdraw from the territories of France, Belgium, and Luxembourg occupied in this war and the Alsace and Lorraine areas occupied in the Franco-Prussian War within two weeks, it also requires a Within a month, the German territory west of the Rhine and the German territory 30 kilometers east of the Rhine were handed over to the coalition forces for safekeeping.The defeat of the war, the handing over of arms, weapons and war reparations is inevitable, so Germany was required to hand over 234 cruisers, battleships, destroyers, submarines, all aircraft of the Air Force, 500 cannons and a large number of guns and ammunition, and up to 31.68 billion U.S. dollars war reparations.

When the war is over, what we are facing is to share the fruits of victory. The Paris Peace Conference on January 18, 1919 was held for this purpose, which was regarded by the world as a farce of spoils. According to historical records, a total of 1,000 representatives from the 27 victorious countries participated in the Paris Peace Conference, including 70 plenipotentiaries. Soviet Russia was not invited, and Germany, as a defeated country, was also rejected.In essence, this meeting is controlled by the Supreme Council composed of two representatives from each of the five countries of the United States, Britain, France, Italy, and Japan, so there is a saying of the "big ten" meeting.On March 25, the decision-making 10-person meeting was reduced to the "Big Four" meeting: US President Wilson, British Prime Minister Lloyd George, French Prime Minister Clemenceau, and Italian Prime Minister Orlando.Later, because Italy made little contribution in the war and its own strength was weak, it was also left out by Britain and France.So in the end, this meeting became a "three-person meeting". They are the three giants of the Paris Peace Conference, and they are also the masters of the entire meeting agenda and content.On the issue of claiming compensation from the defeated countries, British Prime Minister Lloyd George and French Prime Minister Clemenceau disagreed and quarreled.At the age of 78, Clemenceau, nicknamed "Tiger Prime Minister", even though he has silver hair, he is still as fierce and tough as a beast.Lloyd George also refused to show weakness, and refused to retreat in the slightest in his own interests.For the purpose of the United States itself, US President Wilson has no intention of directly taking a share of the war reparations, but chooses to deal with Britain and France.

Clemenceau wants France to get the Saarland, because owning the Saarland means controlling the most important military-industrial area in Europe, and dominating the European continent will be just around the corner.Britain and the United States certainly could not agree to this dangerous demand.The Big Three quarreled from January to April, and none of them was willing to give in, and they often threatened each other by withdrawing from peace meetings. No matter how long the debate is, it will eventually come to an end. Countless disputes and lengthy negotiations have finally come to an end: Britain gets a territory with a population of 10 million under the mandate system stipulated by the League of Nations, and France gets an area with a population of 7.5 million. Japan also got Germany's possessions in the Pacific accordingly, and the US policy of "open door, equal opportunities, and equal benefits" was recognized and became popular.

In addition to the sharing of economic interests, the Paris Peace Conference also had another political agenda, which was to ensure the social order of capitalism and strangle the newly born dissident power—Soviet Russia.To this end, they decided to impose a comprehensive economic blockade on Soviet Russia, and hoped to form a League of Nations to counter the Communist International created by Lenin. June 28, 1919 was the last day of the Paris Peace Conference and the day when all the victorious nations officially signed the peace treaty.However, as a victorious country, Chinese representative Gu Weijun and others refused to attend the meeting and sign.What is the reason that led to such a result?It turned out that they were motivated by strong feelings of patriotism.Because there are clauses directly related to China in the Paris peace treaty, that is, the territory of Jiaozhou Bay in Shandong Province occupied by Germany before the war, as well as the resources there, such as railways, minerals, and submarine cables, are all owned by Japan.Turning our eyes back to the arduous journey of the First World War, we can find that China participated in the war against the Allied Powers and contributed its own strength to the victory of the war, including supporting the Allied Powers with a large amount of food and sending 175,000 laborers. There are more than 2000 people.As a victorious country, China should take back the sovereignty of the Shandong Peninsula occupied by Germany as a matter of course.But Anglo-American law gave it to Japan as an exchange gift.At that time, China's Beiyang warlord government, which was betraying the country and seeking glory, was actually preparing to sign this treaty that humiliated the country, so the people of the country were passionate, and the "May 4th" Movement finally broke out.The support and appeal of the Chinese people inspired the Chinese delegation, and they put forward two proposals to the peace conference: the abolition of imperialist privileges in China; the abolition of the "Twenty-One" that Japan forced China to recognize, and the recovery of Shandong's rights and interests.

But in the end the proposal was rejected, and the Beiyang warlords ordered the Chinese delegation to sign the peace treaty. Chinese laborers and Chinese students in Paris staged a massive protest. "Can't sign" became the common voice of all Chinese with backbone.The Chinese delegation finally issued a statement: "If the Shandong issue is not resolved, we will never sign the peace treaty!"