Alternate Locations for the Paris Peace Conference of 1919?

[The Tai-Pan]

What are some alternate locations for the Peace Conference that settled affairs after WW1? In some books it is mentioned there was some debate and mention that Paris was less then ideal but what other cities would do?

Obviously we can strike out any cities in the former Central Powers. For one thing this would set the entirely wrong tone, and Wilson (and probably Loyd George) had no desire to sit like conquering Romans in a shattered rival city. Secondly they would be at risk from a hostile population and, most importantly, any city would probably be incapable of hosting such an event anyway due to lack of resources/infrastructure.

Maybe another allied city. London seems a natural location. No war damage, easy to get to, population not prone to rioting. Obviously it has to be in Europe so America is out. Rome is probably too provincial and has a weird thing with the Pope going on. So that is the major powers (with Russia obviously being excluded!) And I think we can safely dismiss all the minor allied cities, such as Athens, Lison, as being totally inadequate.

Which brings us to to the cities that look best to the modern eye, the neutral nations. A city in Switzerland, Sweden, maybe the Netherlands, perhaps even Denmark? I honestly don't know if these cities had the facilities in 1919 to host such a world event. Also, would the winning powers settle for a 'neutral' location? This was a Conference of winners dictating to losers.


Thoughts?

 

[Wendell]

Amsterdam, Geneva, Locarno, Sevres, Lausanne, The Hague, and Zurich are obvious choices.

 

[MichaelWest]

My preference would be the Hague. It is in a neutral country that has ties to both Britain and Germany, it is historically a city of justice and peace and represents civilization over unrestrained warfare. Geneva might be next best as a purely neutral ground for all parties and French speaking symbolic for France and diplomacy, a hint to culture over industrial warfare.

In drafting a CP "victory" I chose Hague, spinning the peace into more legalistic and tribunal overtones that I think were how the minds wanted a future peace secured. So the judicial motif of the Hague becomes the preferred dispute resolution to warfare or the quasi Senatorial theme of a LoN.

I then transfer the international disarmament and cooperative bodies to Zurich because Germany prefers a Gernanic city and it gives subtle nod to the balance of power shifted from France to Germany in the future.

Rather than a league I go for a council but in this scenario we might just sneak back into the congress notion of Europe cooperating as it had. Outcomes though more derived by tribunal and rule of law, so compensation versus reparation, indemnity rather than punishment. The Hague gave me the symbolic to shade the reality.

 

[Deleted member 94680]

Constantinople.

Already occupied by the Allies, “centre of the World” in an East meets West kind of way and planned to be in an International Zone post-War.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

Wilson would probably be delighted to host the conference in Washington, but I think Geneva would be the most likely venue.

 

[Wendell]

Wilson would probably be delighted to host the conference in Washington, but I think Geneva would be the most likely venue.

Hosting it in Washington, while not likely, might have helped ratification.

 

[MichaelWest]

Constantinople.

Already occupied by the Allies, “centre of the World” in an East meets West kind of way and planned to be in an International Zone post-War.

Indeed I think it might be one of the strongest symbols for "East" and "West" cooperation but with a punitive Versailles style peace that poisons the affair. If Constantinople becomes an international city then we transfer the aspirations of an international community and its infrastructure to this city, replacing Geneva. My caveat would be that in truth the "East" is not highly regarded, this being a backwater of sorts, non-Christian or European, unfitting for the "honor," so perhaps that pushes for Athens? A historic and different symbol especially for the British as a cradle of civilization?

Wilson would probably be delighted to host the conference in Washington, but I think Geneva would be the most likely venue.

Had Wilson actually built American consensus to participate and lead the new world order then Washington in 1919 would be the epicenter akin to NYC for the UN post-1945. To get Washington for the talks I think we need the USA more onboard to lead and having done more to win the war than finance it and send troops at the end, a matter of perception, but I think the Great powers barely acknowledged the USA as a true power at this stage and grateful were not conceding they did not do the real winning. France might yield to Washington versus London, and there might be the POD, London being more "obvious" and floated as venue sooner to persuade France to shift it to America where she assumes the venue is more hospitable given the historic friendship being France and America?

 

[Deleted member 94680]

Indeed I think it might be one of the strongest symbols for "East" and "West" cooperation but with a punitive Versailles style peace that poisons the affair. If Constantinople becomes an international city then we transfer the aspirations of an international community and its infrastructure to this city, replacing Geneva. My caveat would be that in truth the "East" is not highly regarded, this being a backwater of sorts, non-Christian or European, unfitting for the "honour," so perhaps that pushes for Athens? A historic and different symbol especially for the British as a cradle of civilisation?

I always wondered if the end of the War had gone slightly differently, whether Constantinople (being further behind “the lines” and abandoned by the Ottomans) would end up as a “capital of the World”. All of the other options are ‘tainted’ in one way or another. Geneva is European, so is The Hague and New York is American, what other options are there?

I very much doubt Athens would be considered, it’s a Capital city after all. There’s their situation at the end of World War One to consider as well. I also believe Constantinople was held in far higher regard than Athens by many of “main players” of the day.

 

[MichaelWest]

I always wondered if the end of the War had gone slightly differently, whether Constantinople (being further behind “the lines” and abandoned by the Ottomans) would end up as a “capital of the World”. All of the other options are ‘tainted’ in one way or another. Geneva is European, so is The Hague and New York is American, what other options are there?

I very much doubt Athens would be considered, it’s a Capital city after all. There’s their situation at the end of World War One to consider as well. I also believe Constantinople was held in far higher regard than Athens by many of “main players” of the day.

You may be on to something. But how does this wedge into Western relations to the now decapitated Ottoman/Turkish and look like a return to Byzantium? Accelerate the Muslim slash European divide?

 

[Deleted member 94680]

But how does this wedge into Western relations to the now decapitated Ottoman/Turkish and look like a return to Byzantium? Accelerate the Muslim slash European divide?

I’m not sure I follow you. Wedge? Byzantium? Divide?

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

I’m not sure I follow you. Wedge? Byzantium? Divide?

He means does this piss off the Turks and lead to an earlier rise of Radical Islam. He's also speculating that an Independent Constantinople probably including all of European Turkey could be claimed to be a return of the Byzantine Empire.

 

[MichaelWest]

He means does this piss off the Turks and lead to an earlier rise of Radical Islam. He's also speculating that an Independent Constantinople probably including all of European Turkey could be claimed to be a return of the Byzantine Empire.

That was my reaction and speculative questions.

 

[Deleted member 94680]

That was my reaction and speculative questions.

Ah. With you now.

The plan was never for all of European Turkey, as far as I am aware, just the surrounds of the Straights to ‘internationalise’ them.

Also, it all hangs on the Ottomans agreeing to it in a Treaty which kind of precludes the “pissing them off” part (in the minds of the WAllied politicians) I would say.

Also, the International City idea was a kind of Geneva/Hague/New York years ahead of its time and not the possession of a Victorious Power.

 

[MichaelWest]

Ah. With you now.

The plan was never for all of European Turkey, as far as I am aware, just the surrounds of the Straights to ‘internationalise’ them.

Also, it all hangs on the Ottomans agreeing to it in a Treaty which kind of precludes the “pissing them off” part (in the minds of the WAllied politicians) I would say.

Also, the International City idea was a kind of Geneva/Hague/New York years ahead of its time and not the possession of a Victorious Power.

I doubt any of the three vanquished felt they had freely agreed to their treaties. Taking Constantinople and the Thrace from Turkey should soon become an unbearable injury and insult. I admire the ideal but in practice an international city like this is just another Shanghai. Liquor, prostitutes and gambling, shady business, drug deals, debauchery and all in a city once home to the Caliph. But maybe I am a pessimist.

 

[David T]

Two accounts, one from a contemporary observer in 1920, the other from a historian decades later:

"The choice of Paris for the historic Peace Conference was an afterthought. The Anglo-Saxon governments first favored a neutral country as the most appropriate meeting-ground for the world's peace-makers. Holland was mentioned only to be eliminated without discussion, so obvious and decisive were the objections. French Switzerland came next in order, was actually fixed upon, and for a time held the field. Lausanne was the city first suggested and nearly chosen. There was a good deal to be said for it on its own merits, and in its suburb, Ouchy, the treaty had been drawn up which terminated the war between Italy and Turkey. But misgivings were expressed as to its capacity to receive and entertain the formidable peace armies without whose co-operation the machinery for stopping all wars could not well be fabricated. At last Geneva was fixed upon, and so certain were influential delegates of the ratification of their choice by all the Allies, that I felt justified in telegraphing to Geneva to have a house hired for six months in that picturesque city.

"But the influential delegates had reckoned without the French, who in these matters were far and away the most influential. Was it not in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, they asked, that Teuton militarism had received its most powerful impulse? And did not poetic justice, which was never so needed as in these evil days, ordain that the chartered destroyer who had first seen the light of day in that hall should also be destroyed there? Was this not in accordance with the eternal fitness of things? Whereupon the matter-of-fact Anglo-Saxon mind, unable to withstand the force of this argument and accustomed to give way on secondary matters, assented, and Paris was accordingly fixed upon...."

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/14477/14477-h/14477-h.htm

"A minor Anglo-American discord arose in the pre-Conference period over the question of where the Peace Conference should be held. Wilson and Lloyd George were at first in agreement that it should be on neutral rather than French soil. On October 28, Wilson cabled House, then attending the Inter-Allied Conference in Paris, that he preferred Lausanne to Paris, "care being taken not to choose a place where either German or English influence would be strong." At the conference of Allied Premiers on October 29, Lloyd George and Colonel House presented a united front for a conference on neutral soil against Clemenceau's demand for Paris. This apparent Anglo-American understanding was broken when President Wilson suddenly reversed himself and came out for Paris, contending that Switzerland was "saturated with every poisonous element and open to every hostile influence in Europe". House reluctantly supported the President's new position in the Allied Conference on November 9, and proceeded to overcome Lloyd George's opposition by inducing Lord Northcliffe, the British press magnate, to come out strongly for Paris in an editorial in The Times. That deprived of American suport for a neutral site, the British Government reluctantly agreed to a peace conference to be held in Paris. Lloyd George, who had personally favored Geneva, regarded the choice of Paris, with its charged atmosphere, as regrettable, but Great Britain, he felt, could not hold out for a neutral site without American support. Whether in fact the holding of the Peace Conference in "shell-shocked" Paris contributed to the harshness of the peace treaties is problematical. It is difficult to believe that the French would have struck a more liberal posture on security, or the British on reparations, at Geneva or Lausanne." Seth P. Tillman, Anglo-American Relations at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, pp. 56-7. https://books.google.com/books?id=wCTWCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA57

One should remember that Wilson was already under fire from Theodore Roosevelt and others for acting as if he were a neutral mediator between "our faithful and loyal friends and our treacherous and brutal enemies." https://books.google.com/books?id=af6DLnuJQBAC&pg=PA305 Holding out for a neutral country in the face of the French arguments--as though the fact that the war had been fought so heavily on French soil and had damaged France so terribly should in a sense be held against her--would only intensify such criticism. And it is not clear what good it would have done--as Tillman notes, it is very doubtful that the French or British would have taken a softer line against Germany just because they were meeting in Switzerland.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

I doubt any of the three vanquished felt they had freely agreed to their treaties. Taking Constantinople and the Thrace from Turkey should soon become an unbearable injury and insult. I admire the ideal but in practice an international city like this is just another Shanghai. Liquor, prostitutes and gambling, shady business, drug deals, debauchery and all in a city once home to the Caliph. But maybe I am a pessimist.

The City and Thrace will fill up with White Russians and Greeks driven out of Anatolia.

 

[The Tai-Pan]

@David T Your posts are always excellent, how do you do it?

 

[Deleted member 94680]

I doubt any of the three vanquished felt they had freely agreed to their treaties.

I was only referring to the Ottomans.

Taking Constantinople and the Thrace from Turkey should soon become an unbearable injury and insult.

Maybe to “the people” but to the Sublime Porte it’s just another war they’ve lost and a change in situation they have to deal with. It’s what the Caliphs and Grand Viziers did, adapt to survive. I agree, down the line given the right situations, it’s fodder to radical populists and extremist demagogues. But to the Government of the Empire, to remain in power and carry on receiving the ‘support’ of the Great Powers, it’s something to be endured rather than overturned.

I admire the ideal but in practice an international city like this is just another Shanghai. Liquor, prostitutes and gambling, shady business, drug deals, debauchery and all in a city once home to the Caliph. But maybe I am a pessimist.

Bah, what major city didn’t have drugs, prostitution, alcohol and shady business? It’s not like Old Pera was a beacon of reputable behaviour before the War anyway.

Maybe it’s me being optimistic, but I see International Constantinople as a place of inter-governmental agencies and embassies, awash with ambassadors and their diplomatic staff. Each old Ottoman palace now repurposed as a meeting place for committees and organisations. The only ‘military’ would be an international gendarmerie made up of League of Nations members.

 

[The Tai-Pan]

Maybe it’s me being optimistic, but I see International Constantinople as a place of inter-governmental agencies and embassies, awash with ambassadors and their diplomatic staff. Each old Ottoman palace now repurposed as a meeting place for committees and organisations. The only ‘military’ would be an international gendarmerie made up of League of Nations members.

Eh, while an interesting vision, I doubt it will be much more then a mirage of the Western powers, like so much of what they tried to build in Paris. Any 'International city' will be caught between the grand dreams of the Greeks and the bitter resentment Turks. We all saw how the treaty of Sevres turned out, this would be like that but much larger. Not to mention the specter of Communist Russia just over the horizon.

 

[Wendell]

Eh, while an interesting vision, I doubt it will be much more then a mirage of the Western powers, like so much of what they tried to build in Paris. Any 'International city' will be caught between the grand dreams of the Greeks and the bitter resentment Turks. We all saw how the treaty of Sevres turned out, this would be like that but much larger. Not to mention the specter of Communist Russia just over the horizon.

Tangier might have some relevance here.