on May 7, that the United States and Great Britain were prepared to sign treaties with France, guaranteeing her against German aggression. But the session of May 6 was remarkable for the strong undercurrent of dissatisfaction among the minor Powers "with special interests" (including the British Dominions) who felt that their views had not been sufficiently considered. On May 7 at the Trianon the Conference saw the draft treaty handed to Count Brockdorff-Rantzau, the principal German delegate, and heard him deliver, without rising from his chair, a sharp attack upon their dilatory methods. He stated that, in the past six months, the blockade had been responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths in Germany. " Think of that when you speak of guilt and punishment." He and his countrymen accepted the liabilities to which they were committed by the Armistice and Mr. Wilson's terms. They were prepared to play their part in restoring Belgium and the devastated areas of France. But he intimated that Germany did not hope for a just peace. " We are under no illusions as to the extent of our defeat and the degree of our helplessness; . we know the power of the hatred that we encounter here."
Fifteen days were allowed the Germans for preparing their reply, but the term of grace was eventually extended to May 29. The German delegates, to expedite the negotiations, trans- mitted their criticisms by instalments, each dealing with one topic (League of Nations, Labour Charter, Saar Valley, etc.); in some cases they tendered several notes successively on the same subject. The Supreme Council had arranged that these notes should be considered by 13 committees, each of which was specially responsible for one section of the treaty, and interim replies were returned to the Germans very promptly. Conse- quently much of the disputed ground had been covered in pre- liminary correspondence before the German counter-proposals were presented as a whole; and M. Clemenceau was able to dispatch the reply of the Allies on June 16. Both documents were polemical in character. The Germans, besides criticising many particular articles of the draft treaty, argued that its general tenor was inconsistent with the terms of the pre-Armis- tice agreement; and the Allies repudiated this imputation with some heat. The main criticisms of the Germans are noted below. Their counter-proposals were numerous, and only the more striking can be given here: (a) Reparation. They offered to pay a sum not exceeding 100 milliards of gold marks, partly in gold but mainly in commodities and services; but they claimed the right of appeal from the assessment of the Repara- tions Committee to a neutral arbitrator. They would pay the first 20 milliards by May i 1926; but they claimed credit for all war material surrendered under the Armistice conditions, for state railways and state property ceded along with Alsace- Lorraine and the colonies, and for the share of the German public debts which, as they maintained, these territories ought to bear. No definite period was fixed for the payment of the remaining 80 milliards, though it was stated that Germany would allocate to this purpose annually a sum equal to the average net peace budget of the empire before the war and it was stip- ulated that no interest should be paid, (b) Territorial. They demanded a plebiscite in Alsace-Lorraine which should give the inhabitants an option between union with France, union with Germany and complete independence. In lieu of the Saar valley they offered to France fixed annual supplies of coal, pending the reconstruction of the French mines. In lieu of ceding West Poland, Danzig and Memel they offered to make Danzig, Konigsberg and Memel free ports (under German sovereignty). They demanded that Germany's claim to keep her colonies should be referred to arbitration, (c) Commercial. They offered to the Allies " most favoured nation " treatment in German markets for a restricted number of years, upon condition of complete reciprocity; and " national " treatment to Allied goods passing over German railways (without a time limit) on the same condition, (d) League of Nations. They offered to nego- tiate on this subject, taking the Allies' draft covenant as a basis. But, as conditions precedent to negotiation, they demanded that Germany should be admitted immediately to the League;
that members of the League should be pledged to abstain from waging economic war; that the Allied Powers should, within two years, abolish compulsory military service and themselves disarm, (e) Occupied Territory. They proposed that the armies of occupation should be withdrawn within six months after the signing of the treaty.
These proposals constituted a manifesto addressed to the public outside the Conference; but in some particulars they agreed with proposals which had been forcibly argued in the in- most circles of the plenipotentiaries. M. Tardieu and Mr. Wilson Harris have both stated, apparently on good authority, that the idea of mitigating the treaty in essential details was be- fore the Supreme Council at various dates from May 23 to June 13, and that one reason for these discussions was a doubt whether the treaty, as it stood, could be enforced on a recal- citrant Germany. Mr. Lloyd George was now the spokesman of the critics; among these were counted the leading members of his Ministry, who, together with Dominion representatives, had been summoned to a special meeting at Paris on June r. He protested against the idea of maintaining a large army of occupation for a considerable time. He was now (for a short while at least) in favour of a fixed indemnity; he advocated re- vision of the Polish frontier and the early admission of Germany to the League of Nations. But it was hardly possible to rewrite the treaty at this stage; the dangers of further delay were too serious to be lightly accepted. On June 13 the movement for revision came to an end. Its only consequences were some con- cessions on secondary points. On Reparation and Military- Occupation the Allies stood by their original draft. They con- ceded some slight changes in the Polish frontier with the object of bringing it " into closer harmony with the ethnographic division." They agreed to a plebiscite in Upper Silesia. They intimated that they were opening negotiations at once for an eventual reduction of their own armaments. They withdrew a provision for internationalizing the Kiel canal. They promised that Germany, if she complied with the terms of the treaty, should be admitted to the League of Nations " in the early future." They invited Germany to offer, within four months of the signing of the treaty, a lump sum in settlement of the whole bill for reparation, but this suggestion was not accepted.
Signing of the Treaties of Versailles, June 28. All arrange- ments had been made for a general advance of the Armies of Occupation in case the German Government refused to sign the treaty, and there were a few days of suspense while Count Brockdorff-Rantzau was conferring with his colleagues at Weimar. On June 20 the Scheidemann Cabinet resigned, ostensibly because it would not consent to sign, but actually from a well-founded consciousness that it no longer com- manded the confidence of the German Labour party. On June 21 a new Premier, Herr Bauer, offered to sign on conditions: he stated that the articles requiring the surrender of war crim- inals and those declaring Germany to be the sole author of the war must be omitted. He was told that conditions could not be accepted, and on June 22 obtained the leave of the Weimar National Assembly to sign unconditionally. Formal assurances to this effect were given on June 23 at Versailles, through Herr Haimhausen who, on the previous day, had succeeded Brock- dorff-Rantzau as head of the German delegation. During the last days of suspense the German warships interned at Scapa Flow were sunk by their commanders, acting, it was stated, on orders from the German Admiralty (June 21).
The new German Minister for Foreign Affairs, Herr Hermann Mtiller, and his colleague Dr. Bell signed the treaty on June 28 in the Salle des Glaces at Versailles in the presence of all the plenipotentiaries, except those of China, who absented them- selves to emphasize their protest of May 6 against the Shantung articles. Before and after this ceremony several subsidiary treaties were signed: (a) Defensive treaties with France, by Great Britain and the United States, undertaking to defend France against unprovoked aggression. The British treaty was ratified by Great Britain on Nov. 20 1919, but it was not to become binding until the American treaty should be ratified;
