The document summarizes the Treaty of Versailles peace conference that took place in Paris from January 1919 to January 1920. It discusses how the main peace treaty with Germany was concluded on June 28, 1919, and other treaties with Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary and Turkey were also negotiated. While the conference aimed to establish a new post-war order, many contemporaries felt this goal was not achieved and the treaty terms, especially for Germany, were heavily contested. The conference was also a major international media event with over 500 journalists in attendance. News coverage of it tended to have a national perspective rather than viewing it as negotiations of global significance.

1. 16. TREATY OF VERSAILLES
THE NEWSPAPERS PERSPECTIVES

2. THE CONFERENCE
 On 18 January 1919 the Peace Conference, destined
to unfold a new peace settlement after the Great
War, commenced in Paris.
 The date was certainly not chosen by chance, since
48 years earlier,Wilhelm I was proclaimed emperor
of the new German Empire.
 The conference officially concluded about a year
later, with the inaugural General Assembly of the
League of Nations – the predecessor of today’s
United Nations.
 The most important event during this time was the
conclusion of the peace treaty with Germany on 28
June 1919, the so-calledTreaty ofVersailles.

3. OTHER TREATIES
 The most important decisions, considerations and
meetings were held before that date.
 Although after this event, the conference was more
like what Margaret Macmillan described as: “…a
theatrical production whose stars had gone” because
the assembled head of states had left Paris, work on
other peace treaties continued. Margaret MacMillan, Peacemakers:The Paris
Conference of 1919 and Ist Attempt to EndWar (London 2001), p. 71.
 Austria signed its peace treaty in Saint-Germain on 10
September 1919 and Bulgaria’s treaty was signed in
Neuilly on 27 November 1919, while the treaties with
Hungary signed on 4 June 1920 inTrianon andTurkey
signed on 10 August 1920 in Sèvres were prepared at
the conference but concluded after its conclusion.

4. MISSION NOT FULFILLED
 Those treaties, especially the one concerning
Germany, have been contested from their
moment of signing. In retrospective their
objective to find a durable peace settlement for
the European continent was not fulfilled, as even
some contemporaries sensed it.
 A British diplomat, for example, said: “We came
to Paris confident that the new order was about
to be established, we left it convinced that the
new order had merely fouled the old.”
Harold Nicolson cited in Zara Steiner, ‘TheTreaty ofVersailles Revisited’ in Michael Dockrill
and John Fisher (eds.),The Paris Peace Conference, 1919: Peace withoutVictory?, p. 13.

5. A GREAT MEDIA EVENT
 But there is another aspect to the conference as
well – it was a great media event.
 “Five hundred journalists were on hand to record
and broadcast the proceedings at a time when
publicity was the exception and not the rule.”
wrote Zara Steiner about the event.Therefore
we will take a look at how the Peace Conference
was presented in contemporary newspapers all
over Europe.
Steiner, ‘ibid.’, p. 32.

6. REPORTS CENTRED ON
NATIONAL PERSPECTIVES
 What might be obvious today was not so much
at that time. Although an occasion of world-wide
significance, with objectives and decisions that
might have been centred on Europe but were
sensible across the planet, the reports were
centred on national perspectives.

7. “CHANGING BORDERS” PERSPECTIVE
 The reason is to be found in the outcome of
World War I itself – At first glance the continent
was cleared of multi-national empires and a
number of smaller states gained independence.
 Though at a closer look this is not that obvious
because about 30 million people lived in states in
which they constituted an ethnic minority.
MacMillan, Peacemakers, p. 496.