Christopher Yang – Land

So Britain wants landed divded in a very cose manner to wilson’ fourteen points also awnt to take german olonies

Alsace-lorraine back to frawnce

German colonies taken

“Stripping Germany of her colonies: The Admiralty believed that it would be strategically dangerous for Germany to regain the colonies that had been captures early in the war by British and Dominion forces. There was little argument for retaining the colonies on economic grounds.

Memoranda on War Aims: In response to a request by Asquith in Augest 1916, various leading figures submitted their ideas on British war aims. There was general agreement that France must regain Alsace-Lorraine, Belgium must be restored, and there should be at least an autonomous Poland. – no call for large annexation of German territory.

Reports of the Imperial War Cabinet Committees – Spring of 1917 chaired by Lords Curzon and Milner to discuss British war aims

Curzon’s Report – which was adopted by the Cabinet, said that Belgium and Serbia must be restored. The questions of Poland and Alsace-Lorraine should be settled according to the wishes of the inhabitants and the need for a lasting peace. Germany should lose her colonies, and Palestine and Mesopotamia should be taken from the Turks.

The Labour Party Memorandom on War aims ( 16 December 1917)

The Labour Party declared itself to be generally favourable to a peace based on a formula of ‘no Annexation and Indemnities’ as had been suggested in Lenin’s Peace Decree of November 1917.

Lloyd George’s Caxton Hall Speech (5 January 1919)

Lloyd George presents following outline of British war aims to a gathering of Trade Unionists in Caxton Hall:

-Restoration and independence of Belgium

-The restoration of Serbia and of the occupied lands of the Allies.

-The restoration of Alsace-Lorraine to France

-An independent Poland

-Self-Government to the nationalities of Austria-Hungary

-Separate national conditions for the subjects of the Ottoman Empire

-Self-determination for the German colonies

Yugoslavia –Combining Kingdom of Servia with the various South Slas living in the Habsbug Empire(Slovenes, Croasts and Serbs) – The Treaties. By the Treaty of St. Germain en Laye(10 September 1919) Austria recognized the independent Kingdom of the Serbs, Corats, and Slovenes. By Treaty of Neuilly (27 November 1919) Bulgaria ceded parts of western Macedonia, and under the Treaty of Trianon (4 June 1920) Hungary ceded part of the Banat and Croatia-Slavonia.

Poland-18th century Poland was split three ways – between Prussia(subsequently the German Empire), and the Russian and Habsburg Empires. (Austria)

Treaty of Versailes 28 June. 1919 New Polish state is given most of German West Prussia, part of Pomerania, and Poznan(Posen) and a ‘Corridor’ to give it access to the Baltic. Danzig a free city under a League of Nation high Commissioner. Later part of Upper Silesia is ceded to Poland after a plebiscite.

10 setp 1919 Treaty of St. Germain en Laye Austria recognizes Polish independence and cedes most of Galicia to Poland.

Czechoslovakia – Bohemia and Moravia – Habsburg Empire –

GERMANY Treaty of Versailles

WEST

Alsace-Lorraine returned to French rule

The Saarland administrated by League of Nations

Three small enclaves given to Belgium

Northern Schleswif cded to Denmark after a plebiscite

EAST

German West Prussia, part of Pomerania, and Poznan(Posen) to Poland

A ‘Corridor’ delineated to give Polanded access to the Baltic Sea

-Part of Upper Silesia ceded to Poland after plebiscite

Danzig a free city

All Geramny’s overseas colonies in Africa, China, and the Pacific were taken over by Britain, the British Dominions, France and Japan

The Treaty of Sevres – Ottoman Empire is abolished

Bosphorus and the Dardanelles (The Straits) made into international waterway

Armenia to become an independent state

Kurdistan to be autonomous

Middle-eastern countires which had been in the war and which ,and as aresultof the war, were subject to “re-settlementat the hands of the Peace Conference All European and Asiatic territories formerly under firect or indirect control of Ottoman Empire and former Russian territories “between the Russo-Turkish and Russo-Persian frontiers and the Caucasus Mountains”

-Principles to be applied included the Wilson fourteen Points and other pertinent declarations in 1918 and the armistice of November 11.

British statement – that non-Turkish populations, or populations in which the Turkish element was in a minority, “ought to be liberatred completely from Turkish rue,”

Where the turks were ina a majority and had no given “the minority elements security of life, separation should follow.”

“wolrd interests such as the “permanent opening of the Black Sea Straits as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees”, or access to Holy Places in Plaestine for all religions of denominations legitimately interested in each of them, which are so important that they must ,if necessary, take precedence over the wishes of the inhabitants of the localities in which they are situated.

“His Majesty’s Government consider that the free passage of the Black Sea Straits, on a footing of equality for the ships of all nations in peace or war, under international control ( as stipulated in the Twelfth Point of President Wilson’s Address of the 8th of January of 1918), can be secured only by removing the shores of the Bospgorus and Darfanelles, and par, atleast of the littoral of the Sea of Marmora, from Turkish sovernignty, to secure the maintencence of the desired conditions.

Boundires of new turkey “would depend on the west upon the disposal of the Asiatic littoral of the Straits and the Sea of Marmora, and on the decisions of the conference in regard o Smyrna. On the east, His Majesty’s Government consider that the frontier should be drawn where the more or les homogenous Turkish population of Anatolia gives place o the mixed Turkish, Armenian, and Greek population of the northeastern vilayets of the frmer Ottoman Empire. They would propose a line leaving Selefke, Kasaria, and Samsun in Turkey, but excluding Mersina, Sivas, and Kerasund.

In Arabic speaking countires – “the wishes of the inhabitants would best be met, and peace and stability best be secured, by the establishment of a series of independent states,” (Howard 16)

Arabic countries be placed under a mandatory of the League of Nations

Kingdom of Nejaz already recognized. – boundries not yet defined though included Mecca nad Medina.

The Arabian Peninsula outside the Hejaz included territory underthe Sheikh og Koweit, the Emir Ibn Saud of the Nejd, and Idrisi Sayyid of Northern Tihama, all whom had entered into treaty engagements with Great Britain, which controlled their foreignrelations. The British proposed the thee relations be recognized. In view of the nearness of the Arabian Peninsula to “important portions of the British Empire, and of the specil political interests of Great Britain in the peninsuka” he Peace Conference or ultimately the League of Nations should recognize Brtain’s “special relations with any other independent Arab Government that may exist orcome into existence in the reaminder of the area.”(16-17)

Mesopotamia, the basin of the Tigirs Euphrates river system and vilayet of Mosul – in habited by predominant by an Arabic-speaking people, was to be accepted “as an independent Arab unit or confederation of provinces.”

“the Christian, Jewish, and Moslem Holy Places in Palestine, like the waterwayin the zone of the Straits, constitue a world interest of such importance that it should take precedence, in case of conflict, over political aspirataions of the local inhabitants.

Plaestine, Transjordan, and Iraw mandated to Britain 196 Groot

Leopold Amery in order to defeat Bermanty Britain ahd veen “compelled to complete the liberation of the Arabs, to make secure the independence of Persia..to protect tropical Africa from German economic and military exploitation. All these objects are justifiable in themselves

President Wilson's Address to Congress, January 8, 1918:

. . . . No statesman who has the least conception of his responsibility ought for a moment to permit himself to continue this tragical and appalling outpouring of blood and treasure unless he is sure . . that the objects of the vital sacrifice are part an d parcel of the very life of Society and that the people for whom he speaks think them right and imperative as he does. It will our wish and purpose that the processes of peace, when they are begun, shall be absolutely open and that they shall involve and permit henceforth no secret understandings of any kind. . . . We entered this war because violations of right had occurred which touched us to the quick and made the life of our own people impossible unless they were corrected and the world secure once f or all against their recurrence. What we demand in this war, therefore, is nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression. All the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest, and for our own part we see very clearly that unless justice be done to others it will not be done to us. The program of the world's peace, therefore, is our program; and that program, the only possible program, as we see it, is this:

  1. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind, but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.
  2. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants.
  3. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associatring themselves for its maintenance.
  4. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.
  5. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.
  6. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest co-operation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their goodwill, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.
  7. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.
  8. VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.
  9. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality
  10. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunityof autonomous development.
  11. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into.
  12. The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman [Turkish] Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule [i.e., Kurds, Arab peoples, Armenians and some Greeks] should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely nmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Darrdanelles [namely, the straits leading from the Black Sea approaches to international waters] should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.
  13. XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.
  14. XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.