Rue Nitot
The Rue Nitot meeting was an important First World War event, when the British Empire delegates at the Peace Conference in Versailles got together to register the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles, and tried to soften the conditions for peace with Germany. The meeting was held at Prime Minister David Lloyd George's flat, 23 Rue Nitot, in Paris, on June 1, 1919.[1]
See also: Treaty of Versailles, Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920), and Diplomatic history of World War IBackground[edit]
When Germany asked for peace in the early fall of 1918, it asked for peace terms based on President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points.[2] However, the Fourteen Points, made public on January 8, 1918, were constructed without input from the Allies, and issued without their knowledge.[3][4] This particularly irked the British, who objected to a "Freedom of the Seas" passage, as they maintained a full land and sea blockade on Germany, which violated Wilson's second point.[5] The Fourteen Points were used as the basis, or starting point, of peace negotiations, although the Germans were told by President Wilson, on November 5, and later by Marshal Ferdinand Foch at the signing of the November 11th armistice, that financial reparations were also in order.[6][7]
As one of the harsh conditions meted out by the French, the Germans were not allowed to participate on the peace negotiations. This surprised the American and English peace plan delegates, who believed in a "New World", or "Wilsonian" peace, and not an "Old World" European peace. However, Prime Minister Clemenceau made it known that the Germans were the aggressors and criminals in this war, and "What kind of justice would be served if the vanquished were allowed to sit at the table, on an equal footing with the victors?" In the end, a team of German delegates were allowed to receive a draft of the treaty, and they were given two weeks (extended to three) to suggest changes to it.[8] Those suggestions were made at the end of May 1919, and the purpose of the Rue Nitot meeting was to discuss those changes.[9]