The Film

Historical Facts and Figures

32 Diplomatic Delegations and Co.
The Paris Peace Conference received 32 national delegations, comprised of more than 500 diplomats representing 75% of the world’s population. Also in Paris was a remarkable assortment of international figures, including Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, Queen Marie of Rumania, Lawrence of Arabia, King Feisal and Ho Chi Minh – a kitchen hand who went on to be the first president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

Newsmen, Socialites and Arms Dealers
About 500 reporters were in Paris to cover the event. The city also became a destination for businessmen seeking reconstruction deals, socialites seeking rich husbands, arms dealers flogging their wares and any number of lobbyists and petitioners seeking to advance their own agenda.

The Treaty of Versailles
The most famous document to come out of the Peace Conference was signed with great public ceremony in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles on June 28, 1919. It officially brought the war with Germany to an end and established the terms of peace. Work continued until 1920 on separate treaties with Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey.

German War Reparations
The final terms established that Germany, in acknowledging its guilt in starting the war, should pay 132 billion gold marks (about $33 billion U.S.) in reparations. In the end they paid only about $4.5 billion.

Paving the Path to the Second World War?
John Maynard Keynes, a member of the British delegation, would criticize the Peace Conference in The Economic Consequences of the Peace, claiming that the final deal imposed impossibly harsh terms on the defeated Germans. In ensuing years many historians have endorsed his view, blaming the Big Four for creating conditions that paved the way for Nazism and WW II. Margaret MacMillan takes exception to this view in her 2003 book, Paris 1919.

New Countries, New Problems
Iraq, Yugoslavia and Palestine were among the new countries created at the Paris Peace Conference. Many current international problems — the Iraq crisis, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the various Balkan wars and the Kurdish struggle for a homeland — trace their roots to decisions made in Paris in 1919.

Italy and Japan: Allies of Entente Powers
In contrast with WWII, when both were to be German allies, Italy and Japan fought against Germany in the First World War and had delegations at the Peace Conference. The Japanese, represented by senior diplomats rather than their prime minister, pushed unsuccessfully for provisions banning racial discrimination to be included in the first covenant for the League of Nations.

First World War Casualties: Unprecedented in History
The First World War, with its newly developed weaponry and systems of warfare, claimed more lives than any other previous war. An estimated 10 million died in total, including 1.7 million Russians, 1.6 million Germans, 1.3 million French, 900,000 Austro-Hungarians, more than 600,000 Britons and about 60,000 Americans. Canada lost about 60,000 men, and Newfoundland — which sent its own forces — lost about 1,500.

Heavy French Losses
Being on the frontlines, France not only suffered huge casualties — one quarter of all men between 18 and 30 were dead, and over 4 million wounded — but also sustained massive blows to its economy. About 6,000 square miles had been ruined — regions that prior to the war produced 20 percent of the nation’s crops, 90 percent of its iron ore and 60 percent of its steel.

Fallen Empires
The war saw the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and left the Ottoman Empire fatally weakened. In Russia the 1917 Revolution had ended the rule of the Tsars, and Bolshevism was sparking both interest and fear throughout Europe and North America.

1918 Flu Epidemic
Adding to the chaos and suffering of the post-war period, a virulent flu epidemic swept the planet between 1918 and 1920, claiming up to 50 million lives.

Worldwide Social Unrest
Adding to the concerns of political classes everywhere, the 1917 Russian Revolution had incited a wave of social unrest through Europe and North America — with general strikes taking place from Paris and Glasgow to San Francisco and Winnipeg.