1919 Paris Imperial Peace Conference, 1907-1921
- Component identifier:
- Series 21
- Content Summary:
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The Peace Conference began on 12 January 1919 with a meeting of the Supreme War Council, now called the Council of Ten (representing the United States, France, Britain, Italy and Japan). It agreed that the British Empire should have 14 representatives at the Peace Conference, including two from Australia. Hughes and Cook were the Australian representatives. Latham was an assistant secretary to the British Empire Delegation, the Secretary being Sir Maurice Hankey. The Peace Conference was a complex affair. The plenary Conference held only six sessions. The most important decisions were taken by the Council of Ten, and later the Council of Four (the United States, France, Britain and Italy). Lloyd George represented Britain, and the Australian delegates could influence him at the regular meetings of the British Empire Delegation. The Australian delegates were present when the Council of Ten considered the future of the German colonies and Latham was one of the authors of the system of classified mandates adopted by the Conference. Commissions were set up to frame the sections of the Peace Treaty dealing with the League of Nations, the International Labour Office, reparations and other matters. Cook was a member of the Czechoslovakian Commission and Latham was one of its secretaries. The draft peace terms were submitted to Germany on 7 May 1919. Following memoranda of protest, some changes were made and the Treaty of Peace was signed at the Palace of Versailles on 28 June 1919. The Australian delegates immediately returned to Australia, reaching Melbourne on 30 August 1919.
The first part of this large series (Items 1-1283) contains a great deal of printed material. It includes the General Scheme of the Treaty of Peace, the Conditions of Peace, the observations of the German delegation on the conditions of peace (May 1919), the note from Count Brockdorff-Rantzau on the responsibility for the War (28 May 1919), the reply and summary of the reply made by the Allies to the German comments. There are agenda of the Supreme War Council, minutes of the Supreme War Council (17 June 1919), minutes of the Council of Five (24 January-3 June 1919), minutes of a meeting of Foreign Ministers (18-19 June 1919), minutes of the League of Nations Commission (11 April 1919), minutes of the Commission on German Colonies (24-25 April 1919) minutes of the Commission on Czechoslovakian Affairs (28 February-13 March 1919), minutes of the Under-Commission on Frontiers (1-13 March 1919), and reports and notes prepared by the Commission on Czechoslovakian Affairs. These are followed by a list of the British Empire Delegation and staff, the minutes of a few meetings of the British Empire Delegation (27 January-10 June 1919) and the British Empire Delegation papers on prisoners of war, the International Labour Convention, the German attitude to the League of Nations, Admiralty policy in relation to the Peace Settlement, the Sarre Basin, reparations, the treatment of German religious missions, German property abroad, German colonies, and the economic clauses of the Treaty. Finally, there are the Australian Parliamentary Papers on the Peace Treaties (1919-21).
The second part of the series (Items 1284-1408) consists of memoranda on the German colonies in the Pacific. They include: 'The British case with reference to the captured German colonies' (January 1919), 'Memorandum regarding the Pacific Islands' by W. M. Hughes (8 February 1919), 'Mandates', 'New Hebrides', 'Memorandum on mandates' by Lord Milner (8 March 1919), memorandum for the War Cabinet on the German Colonies by W. L. Long and 'Some further remarks on the German colonies' by Lord Curzon (25 July 1918). Several memoranda were written by Latham: 'Australia and the German Islands' (5 December 1918), 'Australia's claim to the German Islands' (19 December 1916), 'The case against internationalisation of the Pacific Islands south of the Equator' (25 January 1919), 'Control by a mandatory state of certain German colonies: a criticism' (27 January 1919) and 'Mandatory system and the German Pacific Islands' (21 February 1919).
There is a notebook kept at the Conference and a fairly detailed diary kept during February 1919 (Item 1409). The series also contains a small amount of correspondence (Items 1412-1459), including letters that Latham wrote to his wife and to Admiral Sir William Creswell. They mostly give general impressions of the Conference, the signing of the Peace Treaty, dinners, concerts and tours of Paris and the French countryside.
Finally, there are menus, programs, passes, financial papers, newscuttings, books, pamphlets and maps which Latham collected during 1919, mostly on political questions but some of a tourist nature. There is a large set of handbooks (Items 2073-2242) issued by the Historical Section of the British Foreign Office in 1919.
- Immediate source of acquisition:
- The bulk of the collection was presented to the National Library by Sir John Latham in December 1963, a few months before his death. In November 1974 the Library purchased some further papers from a secondhand book dealer. They comprised family letters and photographs, some diaries and papers relating to the High Court. These papers have been amalgamated into the original collection.
Contents
Access and use
- Parent Restrictions:
- Available for research. Not for loan.
- Parent Terms of Access:
- Copying and publishing of unpublished manuscript material is subject to copyright restrictions. For such material, written permission to publish must be obtained from the copyright holder(s). Copying of unpublished material for research purposes is permissible 50 years after the death of the creator of the material.
- Location of this collection:
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Parkes PlaceCanberra ACT 2600, Australia
- Contact: