Chapter 464 Small Meeting, Great Power
The first person to stand up against the French proposal was British Prime Minister Lloyd George. Originally, Prime Minister Lloyd George's idea was to sit back and relax. After all, the British Empire is still the most powerful country in the world, and any distribution of interests is bound to be inseparable from the attitude of the British Empire.
But unexpectedly, the French came up with a ruthless move. The French are not asking the Germans to pay the price for the war. They are simply stepping on Germany to re-establish France's hegemony in Europe and make France the most powerful country in the world again.
Germany, which has disbanded all its military forces and expelled all its military industries, is destined not to be a match for the French.
This also means that the French will no longer have any rivals on the French continent, especially in Western and Central Europe.
Under the influence of the French, countries like Belgium, the Netherlands, and even Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire will inevitably change their diplomatic attitudes.
If these countries turn to France, the continental balance policy that the British have worked hard to manage in Europe will be invalidated from then on.
By then, France will be unstoppable on the European continent. There will always be another anti-French alliance to strike back at the arrogance of the French.
"Mr. Clemenceau, your country's conditions are too harsh for Germany and are not in line with our pacifist spirit. The complete abolition of the German army will only plunge the country into further chaos, which is not in the interests of all of us. At the same time, ceding too much German land will make the Germans hate us even more. I hope that the war will end because of this peace talk, rather than leading to the next war because of this peace talk." Lloyd George stood up and explained his views.
It is necessary to teach the Germans a lesson, but it must be done in moderation. For the British Empire, a Germany with a certain strength can hold back the pace of French expansion.
After all, both Germany and France are threats to the British Empire, and the British attitude towards the French before World War I was not so good.
As two old powers, Britain and France still have a lot of face in Europe. Although Britain is relatively stronger and has more supporting countries, the peace conference was held in Paris after all, which is the territory of the French.
The quarrel between Britain and France also turned the first few days of the peace talks into a vegetable market. The progress of the peace talks has almost reached zero in the past few days, and neither side has come up with a good proposal to resolve their current conflicts.
In the end, it was Prime Minister Kent who proposed a compromise, which was to reduce the number of participants in the meeting. The conflict between Britain and France would be resolved by the four major powers of the Allied Powers, and even the peace talks would be directly negotiated by the four major powers.
Small countries like the Balkan countries and Belgium only have the right to wait for notification, but not the right to participate in the talks in person to compete for interests.
As for the United States and Italy, these two countries are not adjacent to Germany and have no territorial claims.
At that time, Germany's reparations will be directly distributed to all the victorious countries, leaving them a share, and they don't need to care too much about their opinions.
It was under Prime Minister Kent's proposal that Clemenceau, the chairman of the peace conference, announced that the number of participants in the peace talks would be reduced, and 3, 3, 2, and 2 people would be drawn from the four major powers of the Allied Powers, Britain, France, Russia, and Australia, respectively, to determine the current conflict of interests between Britain and France and the progress of the entire peace talks.
This announcement caused an uproar, but all the countries excluded from the meeting were helpless.
The only countries that are truly qualified to resist are Italy and the United States, but this does not mean that Italy and the United States have the strength to resist.
As for the Balkan countries and Belgium and other countries, these small countries are more sensible and can only visit the representatives of the four major powers of the Allied Powers as much as possible and hold their own thighs tightly.
After the number of people was streamlined, the progress of the peace talks was indeed smooth. Although Britain and France still have conflicts in interests, they all know that peace talks are inevitable.
The German reparations are inevitable. After a preliminary estimate of the casualties and losses of various countries, and combined with the actual situation in Germany, the four major powers of the Allied Powers unanimously agreed to set the funds for German reparations at 20 billion pounds, and the four major powers of the Allied Powers divided up all the equipment of military industrial enterprises and important factories in Germany.
Australasia was also allowed to obtain some of the equipment and technical personnel of these factories first, and all countries agreed that Australasia could immigrate to Germany.
The four major powers also had preliminary negotiations on the share of the 20 billion reparations. As the real leading country of the Allied Powers, the four great powers have the highest proportion of distribution, accounting for 85% of the 20 billion indemnity, that is, 17 billion pounds.
Among them, the proportion of the 17 billion pounds of compensation distributed by Britain, France, Russia and Australia is 3:3:3:1, which is approximately 5.1 billion: 5.1 billion: 5.1 billion: 1.7 billion (in pounds).
Although the casualties of Russia and France are indeed the highest, Britain is currently the strongest, and the average distribution of the compensation among the three countries is acceptable to each of them.
Although Australasia is also one of the four great powers, it has contributed the least and its national strength is the lowest, so it is natural to get the lowest 10% of the compensation.
Although it seems to be only one-third of the compensation of any one of Britain, France and Russia, it is only more than the compensation of all other countries except the four great powers, and only slightly less than their total, which is worthy of the status of the four great powers of Australasia.
After all, Australasia is a small country. Theoretically, the compensation of 1.7 billion pounds can do a lot of things, such as raising the country's strength to a new level.
If the compensation of other Allied countries is added, the amount of compensation that Australasia can get has exceeded 2 billion pounds, which can be said to be a wave of wealth.
As for the remaining 150% of the compensation, which is about 3 billion pounds, it will be distributed by the United States, Italy and all other victorious countries.
It is just right for them to transfer the contradictions from the four major powers of the Allied Powers to other competitors. After all, 3 billion pounds is not a small number. I am afraid that one tenth is enough to make those small countries rich instantly.
As for the most controversial cession of German land between Britain and France, the four major powers have also reached a certain consensus.
Germany must cede part of the land as compensation. Alsace and Lorraine, which the French are thinking about, cannot escape this.
In addition, a small part of the land on the border between Germany and Belgium will be ceded to Belgium as compensation for Belgium's innocent involvement in this war.
The French gave up the demand to form a republic on the west bank of the Rhine and turned to forming a republic with part of the land in the north of Alsace-Lorraine under French trusteeship.
Although there was no risk of ceding the west bank of the Rhine, the French had demanded that this land be established as a military restricted area, prohibiting any German troops from entering, and stationing the Allied troops in this area.
On the eastern front of Germany, the Russians' appetite for annexing East Prussia, German Poland and Silesia would definitely not be satisfied by Britain and France.
Originally, the French did not oppose Russia's request, but their own request was mostly rejected by the British, and the French did not want to see the Russians take such a large land for nothing.
In the end, in the negotiations between the four major powers, the Russians reached a compromise, giving up the land claim of East Prussia and Silesia and annexing the entire Polish region.
The famous Polish Corridor in history should also be called the Russian Polish Corridor at this time. In addition to ceding Poland, Danzig, an important city in the East Prussia region, will be jointly managed by the four major powers of the Allied Powers as a free city nominally belonging to Germany but stationed by the Allied troops.
Because the Austro-Hungarian Empire was not broken up, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire was one of the defeated countries, the Silesia region was not allocated to the unborn Czechoslovakia, but continued to remain under the rule of Germany.
But this was not a good thing for Germany, because the Allies would make up for it elsewhere.
First of all, the German army and navy, the German navy was completely disbanded, and only small warships under 300 tons were allowed to be retained.
All German warships were accepted by Britain and France, and the main warships were handed over to Britain and France in a ratio of 6:4.
The German Army was only allowed to retain 150,000 troops, and was not allowed to equip other weapons except rifles.
Machine guns and artillery were banned weapons in Germany, and German officials and civilians were not allowed to produce them privately. Violators would be severely punished.
The war reparations of 20 billion pounds will be divided into 80 years, with 100 million pounds repaid each year in the first 10 years, and will be handed over to the Allies for distribution.
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