SIGNING THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES

By Harry Hansen, Special American Correspondent.

THIS pen-picture of the historic scene in the great palace at Versailles, where, June 28, 1919, Germany signed the peace terms dictated by the Allies, is taken from Hansen's "Adventures of the Fourteen Points," by permission of the Century Company, the author having been a special American correspondent at the Peace Conference in Paris. The Treaty had been fully drafted on Map 6, but the original German delegation to whom it was handed refused to accept it. There ensued a series of conversations between the Germans and M. Clemenceau, as President of the Conference, which delayed the signing until June 28.

The ceremony, as here described, occurred in the very Hall of Mirrors in which William I of Prussia was proclaimed German Emperor in 1871. This Treaty of 1919 was made with the German Republic, of which Friedrich Ebert had become first President in February, 1919.

THE greatest attention had been given to the staging of the culminating event in the Hall of Mirrors. It is a long and narrow room, more like a corridor than a salon. The delegates ascended the marble staircase and passed through what at one time were the apartments of Marie Antoinette to the Salon de la Paix, the Hall of Peace, whence they entered the Hall of Mirrors. At this end of the hall were the chairs for the invited guests. Then came tables for secretaries of certain delegations. Beyond that stood the long horseshoe table that ran along the mirrored side of the hall. At the middle of the table, facing the high embrasured windows, was the place for M. Clemenceau, President of the Conference. To his left, in the direction of the Hall of Peace, were reserved places for the delegates of Great Britain, the British Dominions, and Japan. Here the angle in the table was reached, and then came the places reserved for Germany. There followed the seats of Uruguay, Peru, Panama, Nicaragua, Liberia, Hondurus, Brazil, Haiti, Guatemala, Bolivia and Equador. At the right hand of the President sat the commissioners from the United States. Then came France, Italy and Belgium. Beyond the turn of the table came the places of Greece, Poland, China, Cuba, Rumania, Hedjaz, Siam, Serbia and Czecho-Slovakia. Behind this table were tables for secretaries, and behind them, extending toward the Hall of War, came seats for the representatives of the press of the world. Inside the horseshoe table were smaller tables for secretaries, and a small one before the chairman's place was reserved for the interpreter. In the middle stood the table on which lay the treaty of peace and three other documents to be signed simultaneously with it; the protocol, to be signed also by all the delegates; the Rhine province agreement, to be signed by the five great Powers and Germany; and the Polish treaty, to be signed by the five great Powers, Poland and Germany.

On the day before the ceremony Herr von Haniel sent word to the Peace Conference that the German delegates had received no formal assurance that the document they were to sign in the Hall of Mirrors was identical with the treaty handed them on June 19th. M. Clemenceau immediately drafted a letter assuring them formally that the document was identical in all its parts, and this was carried to the Germans by M. Dutasta, General Secretary of the Conference.

Similarly, the places reserved for the delegation from China were not to be occupied. This was the one rift in the lute, for the Chinese commissioners, in protest against the clauses of the treaty agreeing to the transfer of the German leaseholds to Japan, decided not to sign the Treaty. A month before the Chinese plenipotentiaries had made a formal request of the Peace Conference that the question involved in the Shantung matter be not included in the Treaty, but be postponed for future consideration. This request was denied. On the morning of June 28 M. Lou Tseng Tsiang, president of the Chinese delegation, asked that China be permitted to sign with the explanatory note, "Under the reservation made at the plenary session of May 6, 1919, and relative to the question of Shantung (Articles 156, 157, and 158)." He pointed out that the Swedish plenipotentiary signed the act of the Congress of Vienna with a reservation. The request was not acceded to by the Conference, and when the time for signature came, the Chinese did not respond. The attitude of the Chinese delegation in this matter was consistent with its point of view that Japan should have been asked by the Peace Conference to vacate Shantung and turn all German property over to China.

"THE SIGNING OF THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES," JUNE 28, 1919 FROM THE PAINTING BY JOHN C. JOHANSEN

There was to be only one official Treaty of Peace, printed on Japanese vellum, with a large margin and held together by red tape. This copy was to be placed in the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France, and a copy given to all the governments concerned in its signing. In order to expedite the signing, which at the best speed possible would take nearly an hour, the seals of the commissioners, which were considered necessary, had been placed on the document before the signing. These were the personal seals of the signatories, for these men signed in person and not as officials of their governments. For this reason it was not considered proper for President Wilson to use the seal that had been selected for him, one bearing the American eagle and the words, "The President of the United States of America." President Wilson thereupon substituted a seal from a ring, given him at the time of his marriage by the State of California, which bore his name in stenographic characters. Some of the commissioners did not possess personal seals, but obtained them before they were needed.

When the time came for opening the historic session, the long hall was crowded with delegates, visitors, and newspaper representatives. The commissioners had put in almost an hour passing from table to table to seek autographs of men as notable as themselves. The guests bobbed up and down in their chairs, trying to observe the great men of the Conference. A score of Garden Municipaux circulated among the crowd for a very good reason: they were instructed to keep a watch on the pens and ink-wells in the hall, and to prevent these articles being pilfered by souvenir-hunters.