The Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles:
Territorial Disputes and the Re-Drawing of the Map of Europe

Map of Europe 1914

 

 

 

 

 

 

Map of Europe in 1914. Image credit: UK National Archives.

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There were several key (and exceptionally thorny) territorial questions that occupied the diplomats at the Paris Peace Conference. And no matter how they chose to redraw boundaries, there were going to be upset people and protests about the end result. There was a great summary of some of these pressing boundary issues in Europe in Current History (April 1919), "Boundary Disputes in Europe: Maze of Difficult and Delicate Problems Confronting the Peace Conference," (*.PDF file) including some maps. Listed below are some of the key territorial issues in Europe and around the world that the diplomats faced in Paris. I hope to eventually get around to explaining what the Conference did (or did not do) in each case.

Boundary Questions
Source for the cartoon is Current History, May 1919

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THE BIGGER PROBLEMS
Polish Corridor Saar Silesia Rhineland

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THE LITTLER PROBLEMS
Memel South Tyrol Sudetenland Shanghai
Thrace Fiume Asia Minor Transylvania
Cyprus Heligoland Albania Ukraine
Shantung Ipek circumspection Sanjak of Alexandretta Strumitsa Enclave

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THE NEW COUNTRIES IN EUROPE
Austria Hungary Czechoslovakia Yugoslavia
Poland Estonia Latvia Lithuania
Turkey      

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Suggested Reading

Suitors and Suppliants: The Little Nations at Versailles by Stephen Bonsal (1946)