Peace had come to Verdun, deliverance to France, safety to the world. With the last words of the national hymn of France, the service was finished, and the worshipers turned and reverently left the building.
THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES AND THE COVENANT OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
(Signed June 28, 1919, Rejected by the United States, November 19, 1919 and Again Rejected, with the Lodge Reservations, March 19, 1920)
The preamble contains the names of the plenipotentiaries that took part in the negotiations and signed the treaty, with a few exceptions: Dr. Hermann Müller and Dr. Johannes Bell were substituted for Brockdorff-Rantzau and his associates, China's delegates refused to sign on account of the Shantung concessions to Japan, and Italy was represented by a new commission headed by Signor Tittoni, the new Foreign Minister.
The text here reproduced is the revised edition of the treaty distributed in French and English among the delegates at the time of the signing. The copy actually signed is deposited in the archives of the Republic of France in Paris.
PREAMBLE
The United States of America, the British Empire, France, Italy, and Japan, these powers being described in the present treaty as the principal Allied and Associated Powers; Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, China, Cuba, Ecuador, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, the Hedjaz, Honduras, Liberia, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, the Serb-Croat-Slovene State; Siam, Czechoslovakia, and Uruguay, these powers constituting with the principal powers mentioned above the Allied and Associated Powers of the one part; and Germany, of the other part: Bearing in mind that on the request of the Imperial German Government an armistice was granted on Nov. 11, 1918, to Germany by the principal Allied and Associated Powers in order that a treaty of peace might be concluded with her, and the Allied and Associated Powers being equally desirous that the war in which they were successively involved directly or indirectly, and which originated in the declaration of war by Austria-Hungary on July 28, 1914, against Serbia; the declaration of war by Germany against Russia on Aug. 1, 1914, and against France on Aug. 3, 1914, and in the invasion of Belgium, should be replaced by a firm, just, and durable peace;
For this purpose the high contracting parties represented as follows: