Chapter 464 Small Meeting, Big Power
The first person to stand up and oppose the French proposal was British Prime Minister Lloyd George. Prime Minister Lloyd George's original idea was to sit tight on the Diaoyutai. 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 I didn't expect that the French came hard as soon as they came up. The French are not asking the Germans to pay the price for the war. They are simply stepping on Germany to re-establish French hegemony in Europe and make France the most powerful country in the world again.
Germany, which has disbanded all military forces and dismissed all military industries, is destined to be no match for the French.
This also means that the French will no longer have any rivals in mainland France, 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 are bound to change their diplomatic attitudes.
If these countries fall to France, the continental balancing policy that the British have worked so hard in Europe will be invalidated.
By then, France will be unstoppable on the European continent. Can there be another anti-French alliance to combat the arrogance of the French?
"Mr. Clemenceau, your country's conditions are too harsh for Germany and are not in line with our spirit of pacifism. Comprehensive elimination of the German army will only plunge the country into further chaos, which is not It is in the interest of all of us. At the same time, ceding too much German land will make the Germans hate us even more. I hope the war will end because of this peace talk, rather than lead to the next war because of this peace talk." He George stood up and explained his point of view.
It is necessary to teach the Germans a lesson, but it must be done only in moderation. For the British Empire, only a Germany with certain strength could hold back the expansion of the French.
After all, both Germany and France were threats to the British Empire, and the attitude of the British and the French before World War I was not that good.
As two established powers, Britain and France still have a lot of face in Europe. Although Britain is relatively more powerful and supports more 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 wet market. The progress of the peace talks has been almost zero in the past few days, and neither side has been able to come up with a good proposal to resolve their current conflicts.
In the end, Prime Minister Kent proposed a compromise, which was to reduce the number of people participating in the meeting. The conflict between Britain and France would be resolved by the four major powers of the Entente, and the peace talks could even be discussed directly by the four major powers.
Small countries like the Balkan countries and Belgium only have the right to wait for notification, but they do not have the right to personally participate in talks 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. Just leave a share for them, and you don't need to care too much about their opinions.
It was at the suggestion of Prime Minister Kent that Clemenceau, the chairman of the peace conference, announced that he would reduce the number of people participating in the peace talks and would recruit 3, 3, 2, and 2 people in total from the four major Allied Powers, Britain, France, Russia, Australia, and China. 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 countries excluded from the conference were helpless.
Only Italy and the United States are truly qualified to resist, 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 relatively sensible and can only visit the representatives of the four major powers of the Allied Powers as much as possible, and each holds their own tightly.
After the number of people was reduced, the progress of the peace talks went smoothly. Although Britain and France still have conflicts of interest, they both know that peace talks are inevitable.
German reparations are unavoidable. After preliminary estimates of casualties and losses in various countries, and taking into account the actual situation in Germany, the four major Allied powers unanimously agreed to set the fund for German reparations at 20 billion pounds. The big powers divided up all the equipment of Germany's domestic military-industrial enterprises and important factories.
Australasia was also allowed priority in obtaining some equipment and technical personnel in these factories, and all countries agreed to Australasia's immigration in Germany.
The four major powers also have preliminary negotiations on the share of the 20 billion compensation. As the real leading powers of the Entente, the four major powers had the highest allocation ratio, accounting for 85% of the 20 billion in reparations, or 17 billion pounds.
Among them, the ratio of Britain, France, Russia and Australia to distribute the 17 billion pounds in compensation is 3:3:3:1 respectively, which translates to approximately 5.1 billion: 5.1 billion: 5.1 billion: 1.7 billion (in pounds sterling).
Although the casualties of Russia and France are indeed the highest, Britain is currently the strongest, and it is acceptable for each of the three countries to equally distribute the compensation. Although Australasia is also one of the four major powers, it has contributed the least and its national strength is also the lowest, so it is natural to receive the lowest 10% compensation.
Although it seems to be only one-third of the compensation paid by any one of Britain, France and Russia, it is only more than the compensation paid by all other countries except the four major powers, and is only a little less than their combined total. It can be considered worthy of Australia. The status of the four major powers in West Asia.
After all, Australasia is a small country. In theory, a compensation of 1.7 billion pounds can do a lot of things, such as raising the country's strength to a big level.
If you add in the reparations from other Allied countries, the amount of reparations Australasia can receive has exceeded 2 billion pounds, which can be described as a huge fortune.
As for the remaining 1.5% of the compensation, which is about 3 billion pounds of compensation, let it be distributed by the United States, Italy and all other victorious countries.
It just allows them to shift their conflicts from the four major 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 issue between Britain and France, the cession of German land, the four major powers also reached a certain consensus.
Germany will definitely have to cede part of its land as compensation. Alsace and Lorraine, which the French have always cherished, cannot escape.
In addition, a small amount of 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 their request to form a republic on the west bank of the Rhine and instead formed a republic in northern Alsace-Lorraine, which was placed under French trusteeship.
Although there was no risk of the west bank of the Rhine being ceded, the French had requested that this land be established as a military restricted area, prohibiting the entry of any German troops, and that Allied troops would be stationed in the area.
On Germany's eastern front, the Russians' annexation of East Prussia, German Poland and Silesia's appetite will certainly not be satisfied by Britain and France.
Originally, the French did not oppose Russia's demands, but most of their own demands were rejected by the British. The French were not willing to see the Russians take away such a large land in vain.
Eventually, during negotiations between the four major powers, the Russians reached a compromise, giving up their land claims in East Prussia and Silesia and instead 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 being ceded to Poland, Danzig, an important city in East Prussia, will be jointly managed by the four Allied powers as a free city that nominally belongs to Germany but is stationed by Allied troops.
Because the current Austro-Hungarian Empire was not divided into pieces, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire was one of the defeated countries, the area of Silesia was not allocated to the unborn Czechoslovakia, but continued to remain under German rule.
But this was not a good thing for Germany, as the Allies would look to make up for their losses elsewhere.
The first is 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 them with weapons other than rifles.
Machine guns and artillery are prohibited weapons in Germany. German official and private production is not allowed. Violators will be severely punished.
The war reparations of 20 billion pounds will be divided into 80 years. In the first 10 years, 100 million pounds will be repaid each year and will be distributed to the Allied Powers.
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(End of chapter)