hesitation, agreed that for 15 years the Saar valley should be withdrawn from the control of Germany and placed under the League of Nations. At the end of that time the inhabitants were to decide between three alternatives the status quo, union with France, union with Germany. If they voted for Germany, then France was to receive the price of the mines from Germany or from the Reparations Commission.
(c) The Reparations Clauses were also of special interest to France. Her representatives insisted passionately on " integral reparation," the assessment of the damage actually done by Germany and by her allies, and the exaction of the utmost farthing. How otherwise, they asked, could France escape bankruptcy? Many English and American experts were im- pressed by the exhaustion of Germany, the danger of driving her to desperation, the unwisdom of leaving her liability inde- terminate for the many months which would pass before a com- plete bill for damages could be presented; and they pressed for taking in final quittance whatever sum (20 or 40 milliards of marks at most) Germany could be compelled to pay at once. The French view prevailed, but there was another battle over the categories of damage, and Mr. Wilson was persuaded only with great difficulty to admit that pensions and allowances to combatants and to their families came within the terms of his pre-Annistice conditions. There were further debates on the capacity of Germany to pay and on the sum for which she might conceivably be liable. In the end the extent both of her legal liability and of the sum to be actually paid wai left for future definition. Germany was to pay 20 milliards of gold marks in cash and kind by May i 1921; and out of this sum the Allies would pay for any foodstuffs or raw materials which they considered indispensable to Germany. Two further sums, each of 40 milliards, were to be exacted later, bringing the total to 100 milliards; but this, in the words of the treaty, was only " a first instalment." The final account would be presented by the Reparations Commission before May i 1921, and would be paid off by degrees over a period of 30 years, with interest at 5 per cent. On Sept. 5 1919 the French Minister of Finance encouraged the Chamber to expect that 300 milliards might be extracted from Germany. In Jan. 1921 the European Allies agreed to exact one-third of this sum, payable with interest over 40 years, and supplemented by a tax of 12 per cent ad valorem on German exports. This was rejected by Germany, but at the end of April the Allies presented an ultimatum which was accepted.
(d) The delimitation of the western frontier of Poland was not effected without serious debates. France desired to treat Poland liberally. Great Britain was impressed with the risk of creating a new Germania irredenta to trouble the peace of eastern Europe. The experts were anxious that due weight should be given to Mr. Wilson's Thirteenth Point, which stipulated that Poland should have a free and secure access to the sea. Poland (supported by France) asked for full sovereignty over Danzig and the approaches to that city. But the popula- tion of Danzig was almost wholly German, and the frontier demanded by Poland would have left 2,000,000 Germans under Polish rule a solution which Mr. Lloyd George considered inadmissible. Thanks to Mr. Lloyd George a compromise was at last arranged which left Danzig a free city under the protection of the League of Nations with a very exiguous degree of freedom. The Polish frontier, in this compromise, was still drawn with more regard to the economic interests of Poland than to the rights of nationalities. But, before the German treaty was signed, the frontier was again modified, and other changes were intro- duced, in deference to the expostulations of the German dele- gates; in particular it was determined that in Upper Silesia a plebiscite should be held.
(e) Shantung was demanded by the Japanese plenipoten- tiaries under the treaties which China had concluded with Japan in 1915, but which, according to the Chinese plenipoten- tiaries, had been extorted by force majeure; also under a secret agreement of 1917 with the European Allies, to which the United States had never adhered. For a long time Mr. Wilson
resisted the Japanese claim, but he finally accepted (April 30 1919) a compromise which the Chinese regarded with so much disfavour that they declined to sign the German treaty. The Japanese were allowed to keep the town of Kiaochow with the adjacent district, and the right of exploiting the mines and the railways in the Shantung peninsula; but they gave an oral under- standing that they would restore the sovereignty of the penin- sula to China " as soon as possible." Mr. Wilson subsequently (Aug. 19) told a committee of the American Senate that he would have preferred a different solution. But the Japanese claim was pressed at a time when Italy seemed on the point of seceding from the Conference; and a second secession would have made it difficult to conclude any treaty with the Germans.
(/) The Italian claims to Austro-Hungarian territories were continually under discussion during April. They were primarily founded on the Treaty of London; but Sig. Orlando claimed Fiume also, taking his stand in this case on the right of self- determination which he otherwise repudiated. Mr. Wilson at first argued that the Treaty of London was incompatible with the principle, enunciated in the Fourteen Points, that " a readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality " (Point Nine). But Sig. Orlando objected that Italy was not bound by this principle, against which he himself had twice protested in the Supreme War Council, when the terms of the German Armistice were under discussion. His protests had been overruled at that time, on the ground that they were irrelevant to the discus- sions with Germany; but he had reserved the right to dispute Point Nine, and he asserted this right to the fullest extent in April. On April 14 Mr. Wilson gave way to the extent of in- timating that he would accept the northern (Brenner) frontier assigned to Italy by the Treaty of London, and would admit Italy's claim (based on the same treaty) to Lissa and Valona; but he required that Fiume, as the natural outlet for the trade of Yugoslavia and Austria, should be made a free city within the Yugoslav customs area, and he held that, as regarded Dalmatia, Italy ought to be content with guarantees for the rights of the Italian minorities living in that province. Subsequently he rejected a proposal, made by M. Clemenceau and Mr. Lloyd George, that Italy should be awarded Fiume in exchange for a renunciation of her treaty claims upon Dalmatia; on April 20 he declined to discuss the Adriatic problem any further; and on the 23rd he created a sensation by publishing a statement of the grounds on which he resisted the Italian pretensions. Next day Sig. Orlando left the Conference, and Baron Sonnino fol- lowed him within 24 hours. On April 29 the Italian Chamber, after hearing Orlando's account of the negotiations, reaffirmed his definition of the Italian claims by an overwhelming majority. On April 30 the German delegates arrived at Versailles and the Council of Four (now reduced to three) had to face the possibil- ity that Italy would not sign the treaty; at this time was drafted the ratification clause which stipulates that the treaty shall come into force as soon as ratified by Germany and any three of the principal Powers. But on May 4 Orlando relented. He and his colleagues reached Paris on May 7, a day too late for the sixth plenary session which approved the draft treaty, but a few hours before the draft was handed to the Germans at Versailles. The Council had not surrendered to Italy on the Adriatic ques- tion, but it was left open for future discussion.
The Draft Treaty and the German Delegates. Two considerable sections of the treaty, the Covenant of the League and the Labour Convention, had been finally approved on April 28 by the fifth plenary session without much debate; the chief feature of the proceedings was that Baron Makino and M. Bourgeois expressed regret that the commission had not seen fit to accept the Japanese and French amendments. The sixth plenary ses- sion (May 6), which was held in secret to approve the treaty as a whole, revealed more serious differences. The Chinese pro- tested against the Shantung clauses, the Portuguese against the African settlement, and Marshal Foch argued that the military guarantees for the submission of Germany were inadequate. His objection was met, to a certain extent, by the announcement,
