List of participants in the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920) explained

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

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

State Plenipotentiaries Notes

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.
Many in China felt betrayed as the German territory in China was handed to Japan. Wellington Koo refused to sign the treaty and the Chinese delegation was the only nation that did not sign the Treaty of Versailles at the signing ceremony. 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.
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.
Later absorbed into Saudi Arabia.
Salvador Chamorro
Nikola Pašić
Ante Trumbić
Milenko Radomar Vesnić
Slobodan Jovanović
Miodrag Ibrovac
Later Kingdom of Yugoslavia
See also American Commission to Negotiate Peace.

Other national representatives

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

Nation Representatives Notes
Arab delegation Faisal, later King of Iraq, advocated for an independent Arab state. T.E. Lawrence acted as the delegation's translator.[2] [3]
Aromanian delegation National Committee of the Pindus Attempted to establish an autonomous Aromanian entity.[4]
Assyrian delegation Attempted to establish an autonomous Assyrian entity in the Assyrian homeland.[5]
Attempted to gain international recognition of the independence of Belarus.[6]
Attempted to gain recognition of the independence of Estonia.[7] [8]
The 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]
Representing the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, in-exile in China.[11]
Kurdish delegationŞerif PashaRepresenting Society for the Rise of Kurdistan and its goal to establish an independent country, or an autonomous entity, in Kurdistan.[12]
Jānis ČaksteAttempted to gain recognition of the independence of Latvia.[13]
Daoud Amoun (first delegation)
Elias Peter Hoayek (second delegation)
Abdullah El-Khoury (third delegation)
Three separate delegations were sent to attempt to: expand the borders of Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate and to gain recognition of the independence of Lebanon.[14] [15] [16]
Attempted to gain recognition of the independence of Lithuania.[17]
The 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.[18]
[19]
Abdulmajid Tapa Tchermoeff
PersiaMostowfi ol-MamalekVosugh od-DowlehMohammad Ali ForoughiIranians, as a neutral power, negotiated war reparations to both, Allies and Central Powers (suggesting Ottoman and Russian territory) due to Persian campaign.[20] Also solicited French or American help to seizure independence from Anglo-Russian spheres of influence in Persia.[21]
The 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.[22] [23]
M. Bucquet [24]
See Central Syrian Committee.
Lobbied for the independence of Tripolitania from Italian Libya.[25]
Lobbied for the independence of Ukraine and for support in its war against Russia.[26]
Nguyen Ai Quoc (later known as Ho Chi Minh) petitioned the conference, seeking self determination and independence for the Vietnamese people.[27] [28]
Lobbied for the independence of West Ukraine.

Non-national representatives

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

Group Major People Notes
Held in February 1919 in order to petition the allies on African issues.
Convened and met from 10 February to 10 April 1919.
Dr. Chaim WeizmannLobbied for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.[29]

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[30] [31] and has been repeated since.[32] [33] In reality, Andorra did not officially participate in World War I.[34] 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.[35]

Notes and References

  1. Treaty of Versailles/Protocol. 1919.
  2. Web site: 2019-06-28. The Middle Eastern Prince Who Tried to Change the Treaty of Versailles. 2020-10-08. The Saturday Evening Post. en-US.
  3. Web site: Story Map Journal. 2020-10-08. www.arcgis.com.
  4. The Fight for Balkan Latinity. The Aromanians until World War I. Giuseppe. Motta. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences. 2. 3. 252–260. 2011. 2039-2117. 10.5901/mjss.2011.v2n3p252. free.
  5. Why did the Assyrian lobbying at the Paris Peace Conference fail?. Svante. Lundgren. Chronos: Revue d'Histoire de l'Université de Balamand. 63–73. 2020.
  6. Web site: Чатыры ўрады БНР на міжнароднай арэне ў 1918–1920 г.. https://web.archive.org/web/20130703193537/http://mbnf.info/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1271:-19181920-&catid=4:all-news. dead. 3 July 2013. Моладзь БНФ. 30 September 2015.
  7. Trapans. Jan Arveds. The West and the Recognition of the Baltic States: 1919 and 1991. A Study of the Politics of the Major Powers. 1994. Journal of Baltic Studies. 25. 2. 153–173. 10.1080/01629779400000071. 43211894. 0162-9778.
  8. Web site: Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs / Välisministeerium. 2020-10-08. www.facebook.com. en.
  9. Web site: Gannon. Darragh. January 1919: the Irish Republic, the League of Nations and a new world order. 2020-10-08. The Conversation. 25 January 2019 . en.
  10. Web site: 2017-02-03. Ireland and the Paris Peace Conference: How Sinn Féin Waged a Diplomatic War. 2020-10-08. IrishCentral.com. en.
  11. Web site: Wilson Center Digital Archive. 2020-10-08. digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org.
  12. Atmaca . Metin . 2022-12-21 . The Road to Sèvres: Kurdish Elites and Question of Self-Determination After the First World War . International Journal of Conflict and Violence (IJCV) . en . 16 . 10.11576/ijcv-5686 . 1864-1385.
  13. Web site: Bražūne. Alda. THE ROLE OF FRANCE IN THE FOREIGN POLICY OF LATVIA, 1921-1933. 2020-10-09.
  14. Web site: LEBANESE HISTORY . 2024-03-15 . www.10452lccc.com.
  15. Simon . James J. . 1996 . The Role of the Administrative Council of Mount Lebanon in the Creation of Greater Lebanon: 1918 - 1920 . Journal of Third World Studies . 13 . 2 . 119–171 . 45197729 . 8755-3449.
  16. Simon . James J. . 1995-06-01 . The Creation of Greater Lebanon, 1918-1920: The Roles and Expectations of the Administrative Council of Mount Lebanon . Air Force Inst of Tech Wright-Patterson Afb Oh.
  17. Web site: The state of Lithuania placing itself on the international stage in 1918–1924. 2020-10-08. valstybingumas.lt.
  18. Web site: Pećinar. The Paris Peace Conference — Contemporary Balkans' perspective. 2020-10-09.
  19. Web site: William F. Lloyd. 2020-10-08. memim.com.
  20. Book: Claims of Persia Before the Conference of the Preliminaries of Peace at Paris: Paris, March 1919 . 1919 . imp. Cadet . en.
  21. Web site: EPOCH . 2021-03-01 . Confronting British Imperialism: Iran at the Peace of Paris, 1919 . 2024-03-30 . Epochmagazine . en.
  22. Web site: First World War.com - Who's Who - Sergei Sazonov. 2020-10-08. www.firstworldwar.com.
  23. Web site: Department Of State. The Office of Electronic Information. Bureau of Public Affairs. 2007-08-01. The Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles. 2020-10-08. 2001-2009.state.gov. en.
  24. Web site: The Project Gutenberg eBook of THE INSIDE STORY OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE, by Dr. E.J. Dillon.. 2020-10-08. www.gutenberg.org.
  25. Web site: 2014-01-04 . Tripolitania, Italian Colony (1922 - 1934) . 2022-05-05 . Dead Country Stamps and Banknotes . en-US.
  26. Web site: Paris Peace Conference . 2022-02-28 . www.encyclopediaofukraine.com.
  27. Web site: Ho Chi Minh seeks Vietnamese independence (1919). 2020-10-09. alphahistory.com. 20 April 2016.
  28. Web site: Bria. Maggie. 2017-03-30. What Did the 1919 Paris Peace Conference Have to Do with the Vietnam War?. 2020-10-09. Bria Historica. en.
  29. Web site: Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, The Paris Peace Conference, 1919, Volume IV - Office of the Historian . 2022-02-28 . history.state.gov.
  30. News: 44-Year Mystery War Ends . Newhouse Newspapers . St. Louis Globe-Democrat . 19 September 1958 . 20 .
  31. News: World War I Ends in Andorra . United Press International . The New York Times . 25 September 1958 . 66 .
  32. Book: Reich, Herb. Lies They Teach in School: Exposing the Myths Behind 250 Commonly Believed Fallacies. Skyhorse Publication, Inc.. 2012. 978-1616085964. New York. 52.
  33. E.g., "Skin-flicks in Shangri-La", The Economist, 1974; Time, 1960.
  34. Book: Guillamet Anton, Jordi . 2009 . Nova aproximació a la història d'Andorra . ALTAIR . 216 . 978-8493622046.
  35. Web site: Andorra va declarar la guerra a Alemanya el 1914?. . 4 February 2014 . AndorraDifusió . Ràdio i Televisió d'Andorra . 12 March 2021.