Map of the World with the Participants in World War I. The Allies are depicted in green, the Central Powers in orange, and neutral countries in grey.

The Paris Peace Conference gathered over 30 nations at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris, France, to shape the future after World War I. The Russian SFSR was not invited to attend, having already concluded a peace treaty with the Central Powers in the spring of 1918. The Central Powers - Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire - were not allowed to attend the conference until after the details of all the peace treaties had been elaborated and agreed upon. The main result of the conference was the Treaty of Versailles with Germany.

Signing delegations

The main delegations, with their secretaries and interpreters, in a painting by Herbert Arnould Olivier.

This list shows all nations and delegations who signed the Treaty of Versailles. All plenipotentiaries signed the treaty, except where indicated otherwise.[1]

StatePlenipotentiariesNotes
 AustraliaBilly Hughes
Joseph Cook
 BoliviaIsmael Montes
 BelgiumPaul Hymans
Jules Van den Heuvel
Emile Vandervelde
 BrazilJoão Pandiá Calógeras
Rodrigo Otávio de Langgaard Menezes
 CanadaRobert Borden[lower-alpha 1]
Charles Doherty
Arthur Sifton
Signed under 'British Empire'. Prime Minister Borden fought successfully for Canada to have its own seat at the Conference, which the British and Americans eventually relented too, opening the doors to allowing Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, and South Africa to send representatives as well. Borden also insisted that he be included among those leaders to sign the Treaty of Versailles; however, it was agreed that Canada would sign under the British Empire.
 ChinaLu Zhengxiang[lower-alpha 1]
Wellington Koo[lower-alpha 1]
Cao Rulin[lower-alpha 1]
At the time of the Paris Peace Conference there were two governments claiming to be the legitimate government of China: the Beiyang Government in Beijing, and Dr Sun Yat-sen's Guangzhou based Kuomintang (KMT) movement. However, they worked together to create the united diplomatic team that would plead China's case in Paris.
 CubaAntonio Sánchez de Bustamante y Sirven
CzechoslovakiaKarel Kramář
Edvard Beneš
 EcuadorEnrique Darn y de Alsua
FranceGeorges Clemenceau
Stephen Pichon
Louis-Lucien Klotz
André Tardieu
Jules Cambon
 GermanyHermann Müller
Johannes Bell
Germany were excluded from the negotiations, but Hermann Müller and Johannes Bell, as government ministers in the new Weimar Republic, signed the treaty as representatives of Germany on 29 June 1919.
 GreeceEleftherios Venizelos
Nicolas Politis
 GuatemalaJoaquín Méndez
Haiti HaitiTertullien Guilbaud
 HejazRustam Haidar
Abdul Hadi Aouni
Later absorbed into Saudi Arabia.
 HondurasPolicarpo Bonilla
IndiaEdwin Samuel Montagu
Ganga Singh
 ItalyVittorio Emanuele Orlando[lower-alpha 1]
Sidney Sonnino
Guglielmo Imperiali
Silvio Crespi
 JapanSaionji Kinmochi
Makino Nobuaki
Chinda Sutemi
Matsui Keishirō
 LiberiaCharles D. B. King
 New ZealandWilliam Ferguson Massey
 NicaraguaSalvador Chamorro
 PanamaAntonio Burgos
 PeruCarlos de Candamo
Poland PolandIgnacy Jan Paderewski
Roman Dmowski
 PortugalAfonso Costa
Augusto Soares
 RomaniaIon I. C. Brătianu
Constantin Coandă
 Serbs, Croats and SlovenesNikola Pašić
Ante Trumbić
Milenko Radomar Vesnić
Slobodan Jovanović[lower-alpha 1]
Miodrag Ibrovac[lower-alpha 1]
Later Kingdom of Yugoslavia
SiamCharoonsakdi Kritakara
Traidos Prabandhu
 South AfricaJan Smuts
Louis Botha
 United KingdomDavid Lloyd George
Bonar Law
Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner
Arthur Balfour
George Barnes
 United StatesWoodrow Wilson
Robert Lansing
Henry White
Tasker H. Bliss
See also American Commission to Negotiate Peace.
 UruguayJuan Antonio Buero
  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Non-signatory

Other national representatives

Delegation from the First Republic of Armenia during the Paris Peace Conference.
Delegation from the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan in Hôtel Claridge during the Paris Peace Conference.

Despite not signing the treaties, other delegations were sent to the Paris Peace Conferences, some uninvited, in order to represent their national interests.

NationRepresentativesNotes
Arab delegationFaisal
Lawrence of Arabia
Faisal, later King of Iraq, advocated for an independent Arab state. T.E. Lawrence acted as the delegation's translator.[2][3]
First Republic of ArmeniaAvetis Aharonian
Hamo Ohanjanyan
Armen Garo
Aromanian delegationNational Committee of the PindusAttempted to establish an autonomous Aromanian entity.[4]
Assyrian delegationBishop Aphrem BaroumAttempted to establish an autonomous Assyrian entity in the Assyrian homeland.[5]
Democratic Republic of AzerbaijanAlimardan bey Topchubashov
Belarusian Democratic RepublicAnton LuckievichAttempted to gain international recognition of the independence of Belarus.[6]
 EstoniaJaan Poska
Nikolai Köstner
Jaan Tõnisson
Ants Piip
Karl Robert Pusta
Mihkel Martna
Eduard Laaman
Joakim Puhk
Attempted to gain recognition of the independence of Estonia.[7][8]
Democratic Republic of GeorgiaNikolay Chkheidze
Irakli Tsereteli
Zurab Avalishvili
Irish RepublicSeán T. O'KellyThe unrecognized Irish Republic sent representatives in hope the republic declared at the Easter Rising in 1916 would be recognised, but they were ignored.[9][10]
Korean Provisional GovernmentKim Kyu-sikRepresenting the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, in-exile in China.[11]
 LatviaJānis ČaksteAttempted to gain recognition of the independence of Latvia.[7][12]
Second Lebanese delegationElias Peter HoayekAttempted to gain recognition of the independence of Lebanon.
 LithuaniaAugustinas Voldemaras
Antanas Smetona
Attempted to gain recognition of the independence of Lithuania.[7][13]
 MontenegroNicholas I of MontenegroThe unification of Serbia and Montenegro on 18 November 1918 was contested by the exiled king of Montenegro. Despite Italian support, Montenegro was denied an official seat at the Peace Conferences, and the unification of Serbia and Montenegro was recognised.[14]
 NewfoundlandWilliam F. Lloyd[15]
Mountainous Republic of the Northern CaucasusAbdulmajid Tapa Tchermoeff
Russia RussiaSergey SazonovThe Allied Powers refused to recognise the Bolshevik government of Russia, and instead invited representatives of the Russian Provisional Government (chaired by Prince Lvov), the successor to the Russian Constituent Assembly and the political arm of the Russian White movement.[16][17]
 San MarinoM. Bucquet[18]
Tripolitanian RepublicLobbied for the independence of Tripolitania from Italian Libya.[19]
Ukrainian People's RepublicHryhorii Sydorenko
Mykhailo Tyshkevych
Lobbied for the independence of Ukraine and for support in its war against Russia.[20]
 VietnamHo Chi MinhHo Chi Minh petitioned the conference, seeking self determination and independence for the Vietnamese people.[21][22]
 West Ukrainian People's RepublicVasyl PaneikoLobbied for the independence of West Ukraine.[20]

Non-national representatives

Inter-Allied Women's Conference.

Other non-national or pan-national delegations were in Paris, hoping to petition the allies on issues relating to their causes.

GroupMajor PeopleNotes
1st Pan-African CongressW. E. B. Du Bois
Ida Gibbs
Held in February 1919 in order to petition the allies on African issues.
Inter-Allied Women's ConferenceMarguerite de Witt-SchlumbergerConvened and met from 10 February to 10 April 1919.
Zionist OrganizationDr. Chaim WeizmannLobbied for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.[23]

Oversights

An oft-stated myth is that the Principality of Andorra was not invited to attend, due to an 'oversight' and that the issue of Andorra being at war was eventually resolved on September 24, 1958, when a peace treaty was signed. This claim first appeared in North American newspapers in 1958[24][25] and has been repeated since.[26][27] In reality, Andorra did not officially participate in World War I.[28] In 2014, the news outlet Ràdio i Televisió d'Andorra investigated the 1958 claim and could find no documentation of any original declaration of war. Historian Pere Cavero could only find an exchange of letters between the German consul in Marseille and the Catalan Ombudsman, where the former asks if there is a state of war with Andorra and the latter responds they could find nothing in their archive to indicate this.[29]

References

  1. Treaty of Versailles/Protocol . 1919 via Wikisource.
  2. "The Middle Eastern Prince Who Tried to Change the Treaty of Versailles". The Saturday Evening Post. 2019-06-28. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
  3. "Story Map Journal". www.arcgis.com. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
  4. Motta, Giuseppe (2011). "The Fight for Balkan Latinity. The Aromanians until World War I" (PDF). Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences. 2 (3): 252–260. doi:10.5901/mjss.2011.v2n3p252. ISSN 2039-2117.
  5. Lundgren, Svante (2020). "Why did the Assyrian lobbying at the Paris Peace Conference fail?" (PDF). Chronos: Revue d'Histoire de l'Université de Balamand: 63–73.
  6. Моладзь БНФ. "Чатыры ўрады БНР на міжнароднай арэне ў 1918–1920 г." Archived from the original on 3 July 2013. Retrieved 30 September 2015.
  7. 1 2 3 Trapans, Jan Arveds (1994). "The West and the Recognition of the Baltic States: 1919 and 1991. A Study of the Politics of the Major Powers". Journal of Baltic Studies. 25 (2): 153–173. doi:10.1080/01629779400000071. ISSN 0162-9778. JSTOR 43211894.
  8. "Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs / Välisministeerium". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
  9. Gannon, Darragh. "January 1919: the Irish Republic, the League of Nations and a new world order". The Conversation. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
  10. "Ireland and the Paris Peace Conference: How Sinn Féin Waged a Diplomatic War". IrishCentral.com. 2017-02-03. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
  11. "Wilson Center Digital Archive". digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
  12. Bražūne, Alda. "THE ROLE OF FRANCE IN THE FOREIGN POLICY OF LATVIA, 1921-1933" (PDF). Retrieved 2020-10-09.
  13. "The state of Lithuania placing itself on the international stage in 1918–1924". valstybingumas.lt. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
  14. Pećinar. "The Paris Peace Conference — Contemporary Balkans' perspective" (PDF). Retrieved 2020-10-09.
  15. "William F. Lloyd". memim.com. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
  16. "First World War.com - Who's Who - Sergei Sazonov". www.firstworldwar.com. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
  17. Department Of State. The Office of Electronic Information, Bureau of Public Affairs (2007-08-01). "The Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles". 2001-2009.state.gov. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
  18. "The Project Gutenberg eBook of THE INSIDE STORY OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE, by Dr. E.J. Dillon". www.gutenberg.org. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
  19. "Tripolitania, Italian Colony (1922 - 1934)". Dead Country Stamps and Banknotes. 2014-01-04. Retrieved 2022-05-05.
  20. 1 2 "Paris Peace Conference". www.encyclopediaofukraine.com. Retrieved 2022-02-28.
  21. "Ho Chi Minh seeks Vietnamese independence (1919)". alphahistory.com. 20 April 2016. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
  22. Bria, Maggie (2017-03-30). "What Did the 1919 Paris Peace Conference Have to Do with the Vietnam War?". Bria Historica. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
  23. "Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, The Paris Peace Conference, 1919, Volume IV - Office of the Historian". history.state.gov. Retrieved 2022-02-28.
  24. "44-Year Mystery War Ends". St. Louis Globe-Democrat. Newhouse Newspapers. 19 September 1958. p. 20.
  25. "World War I Ends in Andorra". The New York Times. United Press International. 25 September 1958. p. 66.
  26. Reich, Herb (2012). Lies They Teach in School: Exposing the Myths Behind 250 Commonly Believed Fallacies. New York: Skyhorse Publication, Inc. p. 52. ISBN 978-1616085964.
  27. E.g., "Skin-flicks in Shangri-La", The Economist, 1974; Time, 1960.
  28. Guillamet Anton, Jordi (2009). Nova aproximació a la història d'Andorra. ALTAIR. p. 216. ISBN 978-8493622046.
  29. "Andorra va declarar la guerra a Alemanya el 1914?". AndorraDifusió. Ràdio i Televisió d'Andorra. 4 February 2014. Retrieved 12 March 2021.
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