This Friday, June 28th will be the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. On one hand, it officially ended World War I. On the other, it provoked many other conflicts, making World War II inevitable.
Our observer Anton Lyadov has the details of how many mines were laid 100 years ago in the Versailles and the lessons for the 21st century.
Remi Bekur Foch, great-grandson of Marshal Ferdinand Foch: "I don't speak Russian. To the memory of my ancestor Marshal Foch, my great grandfather, who was a good friend of Russia and Tsar Nicholas II. He was a great ally in a great war".
Remi Bekur Foch is 81. He was born nine years after his glorious great-grandfather died. But the portrait of the French marshal has always been with him. It's on the wall at the entrance to his house. In World War I, the marshal lost his son, that is, the grandfather of Remi Bekur. Unlike many allies who made lists of conditions for making peace, he thought in terms of not political slogans.
Remi Bekur Foch: "It was a misfortune for him. He didn't sign the Treaty of Versailles. He then said that there would be war in 20 years".
The marshal was mistaken by just two months. This is exactly the time that passed from the signing of the Treaty of Versailles to WWII.
The Versailles changed out of recognition. France was depleted and exhausted. But it felt like a parade; there were guards, cavalrymen everywhere, jubilant people trying to make out at least something through the windows of the palace. French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau was the first to arrive. The British prime minister followed him. Then, American President Woodrow Wilson arrived. The German delegation, whose zone for movement was reduced on the eve because their walks irritated people in the streets, when they entered the palace, the city practically startled.
"They entered the palace through the gardens, while the rest of the delegates entered from the backyard, and they were the last to enter the gallery".
Here is it — the world-famous mirror gallery of the Palace of Versailles. On the day of the signing, they covered the parquet floor with carpets from the times of Louis XIV. Special team stitched up all of 24 pieces. The furniture — a beautiful table, chairs — were brought from Élysée Palace. They installed two rows of telephone booths nearby to instantly report on what was happening here.
Bertrand Rondeau, employee at the Palace of Versailles: The Germans sat at a small table in the corner. They sat at a separate table, not the one where the winning countries sat because they were enemies.
- Was there anything humiliating for the Germans in that ceremony?
- The treaty itself was a humiliation for Germans as they didn't take part in the preparation of it, as in previous cases in European history.
It's 1918, the fourth year of World War I. Over 30 countries are engaged in the war. The last attempt by the Germans, the Spring Offensive to break through the Entente forces' line of defense before the arrival of American troops in Europe, failed. They couldn't deliver supplies and reinforcements in time. The Entente began the Hundred Days Offensive, which ended with the defeat of the German troops and the truce that ended the war.
This is the famous Forest of Compiègne. On November 7th, 1918, French Marshal Foch's train arrived here along one track. Along another track about 300 feet away from here, the German delegation's train arrived. They were put in a car with closed windows and weren't told where they were going. They laid a wooden path between the two trains. The negotiations were held 'round-the-clock. Two days later, late at night, at 2 a.m., the German delegation headed to Marshal Foch's car.
Bernard Letan, president of the association of the Compiègne Armistice memorial: “Erzberger extended his hand to Marshal Foch. The latter didn't shake hands with him. The atmosphere was rather cold, you see?”
They read all of the 24 articles to Germans. In fact, it was their capitulation, even though officially it was a truce. It provided for the withdrawal of troops from the occupied territories, a cease-fire, the transfer of weapons, mortars, submarines, surface ships, aircraft. Three hours later, at 5 a.m., the Germans agreed and signed it.
Natalia Narochnitskaya, Ph.D. in history: "Germany was punished according to the principle "woe to the vanquished", vae victis. This never happened in previous centuries. In the absence of Russia, the Anglo-Saxons quickly divided Austria-Hungary. They decided who could be independent and who would be transferred from one master to another".
Oleg Airapetov, Ph.D. in history: "In the place of supranational states, national states began to arise. As Lloyd George said at Versailles, graves cracked open and people got out of them, who were in those graves and dungeons. They got out of there with huge appetites".
Here is the Treaty of Versailles. The sign on the spine says Traité de Versailles. It weighs about 11-15 pounds. This is the official copy that printed in 1920. The fact is that the original was destroyed by the Nazis during World War II. In total, there are over 400 pages. The fact is that each page of the treaty is duplicated in French and English. The map with the new borders is one of the most important parts of this treaty.
They took about 10% of Germany's lands and deprived it of all of its colonies. Its ally, Austria-Hungary, was divided into four states — Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Yugoslavia.
Oleg Airapetov, Ph.D. in history: "One in three Hungarians found themselves outside of their own homeland — in Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia. And the next generations had to pay for the sins of their predecessors. The same was true for Germany. It led to the robust growth of German nationalism".
The Ottoman Empire was also an ally of Germany. At the beginning of World War I, it included a large part of the modern territory of the Middle East: parts of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, Saudi Arabia. After the war, the Ottoman Empire lost 80% of its territory, breaking up into many states.
Viktor Nadein-Raevsky, historian: "Why straight lines? It didn't matter how to draw lines in a desert. Neither the national nor the religious features of this region were taken into account. But they're extremely great indeed. First of all, there are different branches in Islam itself. There are the Shia and the Sunni. This problem still exists in Iraq, and it blew up Iraq after the American occupation. In addition to it, there are Christian peoples. Both the Sunni and the Shia acted against them. So, the Syrian Christians suffered during the attacks by ISIS".
The problem of the Kurds was another mine laid. They're the people who still don't have their own state. The Kurds are divided between four states.
The Quai d'Orsay in Paris is a common word. In fact, it's a synonym for the French Foreign Ministry. This is that building with the flags of the EU and France. Six months before the conclusion of the Treaty of Versailles, it was here that those on whom the destinies of dozens of countries depended gathered. It was the Paris Peace Conference. French Foreign Minister Benjamin Clemenceau chaired in a chair in front of the fireplace. His colleagues from England and Italy worked at the desks with papers. The American president, as head of state, was given a chair two inches taller than everyone else. At first, of course, representatives from Japan and ministers of foreign affairs joined them. Out of the winner countries, 27 states participated in the conference. But on the days when the key decisions were made, the others except for those four were rejected. Thus, the Council of Four appeared.
The sudden truce led to that the winning countries, believing that the war would last for another year, turned out to be unprepared for peace negotiations.
Shortly afterward, the signatories lost their positions. Clemenceau lost the election six months later. Wilson, who was absent from his own country for over six months, lost it a year later. Lloyd George, a Briton, lost it two years later. The League of Nations, which was created as a result of the Treaty of Versailles, never had global influence.
The huge, beautiful building of the Palace of Nations in Geneva was under construction for almost 10 years in order to accommodate the League of Nations headquarters. By the time the architectural complex was completed and the staff finally began to work here, hardly anything was left of the organization itself as an international conciliator restraining conflicts. All appeals from the League of Nations, including those from here, this is the historic meeting room of the council, an analog of the current UN Security Council, were ignored by large countries. They never began to take the League of Nations seriously.
In 1934, Hitler came to power in Germany, introduced universal conscription, and formed the Wehrmacht, which actually meant Germany's withdrawal from the Treaty of Versailles. Then, there was the blitzkrieg: Belgium, Netherlands, and Paris surrendered without a fight. Hitler ordered to find the same train car where the Germans were forced 20 years ago to meekly listen to the conditions of the Versailles Truce. They blew up the walls of the museum where the train car was kept. They took the car outside, Hitler went inside of it, sat on the seat of Marshal Foch and signed the second Compiegne truce, dividing France into the occupation zone and the puppet state.
Oleg Airapetov, Ph.D. in history: "The system, which was created at Versailles, which was based on disregarding the interests of Germany in Central Europe, Russia's interests in the East, and Turkey's interests in the Middle East and Asia Minor, it was doomed to fail. By and large, we still live in the space, which is, let's say, the result and legacy of the events of World War I".
Some of the lessons of World War I are still to be learned.
Anton Lyadov, Irina Kudesova, Tatiana Korolyova, Vadim Prusov, Alexander Feoktistov, and Andrey Karpenko for Vesti Nedeli.
