Versailles, Treaty of (1920)

VERSAILLES, TREATY OF (1920)

Treaty ending World War I; it established the mandate system for the governance and eventual independence of the Central Powers' former colonies.

The armistices of October and November 1918 ending hostilities in World War I were followed by the Conference of Paris at which World War I victors and associated powers determined the terms for dealing with Germany and her allies during the war. The conference, which officially began on 18 January 1919, resulted in five treaties. The Treaty of Versailles, signed on 28 June at Versailles, France, and ratified on 20 January 1920, addressed the terms of peace with Germany. The treaties of Sèvres, Neuilly, St. Germain, and Trianon dealt with the Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria, Austria, and Hungary, respectively. Besides setting forth the terms for dealing with Germany after World War I, the Treaty of Versailles established the League of Nations and the mandate system for governing territories surrendered by Germany. This treaty included the Covenant of the League of Nations as Part I, with Article 22 giving the league the power to supervise mandated territories consisting of former German colonies. The other treaties included the covenant in their texts.

The armistice with Germany and the Conference of Paris were both predicated on U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points for peace enunciated in his address to Congress on 8 January 1918. In addition to his vision of a League of Nations, these included an adjustment of all colonial claims giving equal weight to the interests of colonial populations and to those of countries with colonial claims. This led many to believe that the peace conference would lead to the independence of the Arab portions of the Ottoman Empire. Based on this, Prince Faisal I ibn Hussein arrived in Paris in January 1919 as head of the Hijaz delegation and with the objective of securing an independent Arab state. At first the French opposed recognition of the Hijaz delegation based on the fact that the Hijaz was not one of the Allied belligerent states. The British, however, intervened, and the Hijaz delegation was recognized. On 29 January Faisal submitted a statement to the conference defining Arab claims. He requested recognition as "independent sovereign peoples" for those Arab-speaking peoples of Asia from the Alexandretta–Diyarbekir line south to the Indian Ocean. Essentially, this included what is now Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, and Iraq. Faisal exempted the Hijaz as already independent, as well as British Aden. The prince addressed the conference on 6 February, stressing the principle of the consent of the governed. He then proposed a commission to visit Syria and Palestine and ascertain the wishes of the populace. The French were not inclined to support this, but pressure by Wilson resulted, on 25 March, in the approval of a commission, later known as the King–Crane Commission.

Despite the sincere desires of Wilson to forge a new world in which all peoples would be the ultimate determiners of their national destinies and the eloquent arguments of Faisal and others on behalf of the Arabs, the Conference of Paris yielded to the imperial interests of Britain and France and, to a lesser extent, to those of Italy and Japan. The colonial territories of Germany and the Arab portions of the Ottoman Empire were assigned to members of the League of Nations under the mandate system established in the covenant. In the case of the Middle East, agreements made during World War I played a large role in distribution of mandates. The secret Anglo–Franco–Russian agreement of 16 May 1916, commonly known as the Sykes–Picot Agreement, divided the Arab dominions of the Ottoman Empire between Britain and France. Britain received the areas that are now Iraq, Jordan, and Israel; France got what is now Syria and Lebanon. The Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917, also played a role in the disposition of Arab territories by the Conference of Paris. This was a letter from Lord Balfour, British foreign secretary, to Lord (Edmond de) Rothschild, a prominent British Zionist, that supported the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. These two documents, more than anything else, shaped the fate of the Middle East in the post–World War I era. The San Remo Conference of April 1920 awarded Syria, including Lebanon, as a Class A mandate to France; Iraq and Palestine, including Transjordan, became Class A mandates under British supervision. The mandate for Palestine endorsed the provisions of the Balfour Declaration. In 1921 Britain separated Transjordan from Palestine, exempting it from the provisions of the Balfour Declaration. As Class A mandates, all three were to be given independence when it was determined that they were able to stand on their own. In the case of Iraq and Transjordan, Arab dignitaries were given royal status in preparation for the eventual independence of these areas. Prince Faisal became the king of Iraq, and Prince Abdullah I ibn Hussein became the amir of Transjordan. The League of Nations confirmed these mandates in 1922, some of which outlived the international organization under which they were formed. The first mandate to obtain independence was Iraq, in 1932, followed by Syria and Lebanon in 1941. Transjordan, now Jordan, gained its independence in 1946. Palestine, much of which is now Israel, gained independence in 1948.

see also abdullah i ibn hussein; alexandretta; balfour declaration (1917); diyarbakir; faisal i ibn hussein; hijaz; king–crane commission (1919); rothschild, edmond de; san remo conference (1920); sèvres, treaty of (1920); sykes–picot agreement (1916); wilson, woodrow; world war i.

Bibliography

Antonius, George. The Arab Awakening: The Story of the Arab National Movement. London: H. Hamilton, 1938.

Sontag, Raymond J. A Broken World, 1919–1939. New York: Harper and Row, 1971.

daniel e. spector