treaty, and the Scheidemann cabinet resigned. A transitional cabinet was formed, including Herr Bauer as Premier and Dr. Hermann Muller as Foreign Minister. On Monday, June 23d, the German National Assembly accepted unconditionally the allied terms, barely in time to avert the execution of the allied plans for blockade and invasion. The effort to find delegates to sign the treaty was attended with great difficulty in Germany, but finally Dr. Miller, the new Foreign Minister, and Dr. Johannes Bell, Minister of Colonies, offered themselves for the ungrateful task. On June 28th Germany and the allied and associated powers signed the peace terms in the same imperial Hall of Mirrors at Versailles where the Germans humbled the French so ignominiously forty-eight years before. Thus formally ended the World War which lasted just thirty-seven days less than five years. June 28, 1919, the day of peace, was the fifth anniversary of the murder of Archduke Francis Ferdinand by a Serbian student at Sarajevo, the assassination of June 28, 1914 being the immediate cause of the great war. The ceremony of signing the peace terms was brief. Premier Clemenceau called the session to order at 3:10 P. M. and amid dead silence made the following address: The session is open. The allied and associated powers on one side and the German Reich on the other side have come to an agreement on the conditions of peace. The text has been completed, drafted, and the President of the Conference has stated in writing that the text that is about to be signed now is identical with the two hundred copies that have been delivered to the German delegation. The signatures will be given now, and they amount to a solemn undertaking faithfully and loyally to execute the conditions embodied by this treaty of peace. I now invite the delegates of the German Reich to sign the treaty. There was a tense pause for a moment. Then in response to Clemenceau's bidding, the German delegates, Müller and Bell, rose without a word and moving to the signatory table, placed upon the Treaty of Peace the signmanuals which the German government leaders had passionately declared would never be appended to the document. President Wilson, the first of the allied delegates to sign, affixed his signature at 3:15. He was followed by the other American representatives. Premier Lloyd George came next, with the English delegation. The British dominions followed. Then, the French, Japanese, and Italian delegates, and after these the representatives of the smaller powers. It was hoped that a compromise could be arranged with the Chinese, but China was adamant and refused to sign away her rights to Shantung. At 3:45 o'clock the momentous session was over. The great war, which for five long years had shaken Europe and the world, was officially at an end, and humanity looked hopefully into a future where only peace and righteousness and justice should have sway. Vol 7-3 |