 | This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations .(September 2020) |
A Peace Conference at the Quai d'Orsay is an oil-on-canvas painting by Irish artist William Orpen, completed in 1919. It was one of the paintings commissioned from Orpen to commemorate the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. The work is held by the Imperial War Museum in London.
Orpen was one of the first people chosen as a war artist by the British Ministry of Information in 1917. Orpen was also official painter at the peace conference, and was commissioned to paint three canvases to record the roles of the politicians, diplomats and military at the conference.
The work is a group portrait depicting preliminary discussions of the "Council of Ten", comprising two delegates each from Britain, France, the United States, Italy and Japan. Conference delegates are depicted sitting and standing around a table in the Hall of Clocks at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris, where the conference was formally opened on 18 January 1919. The politicians and diplomats are overshadowed by the decorated room, with chandeliers, lavish gilded cornice, and a statue of Victory above an ornate fireplace. It measures 124.4 × 101.9 centimetres (49.0 × 40.1 in)
The people depicted are:
Seated, from left to right:
Standing behind, from left to right:
Orpen's other paintings of the conference depict the signing of the Versailles Peace Treaty in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles, and another showing a coffin lying in state in a marble hall covered by a Union Flag.
A League of Nations mandate was a legal status for certain territories transferred from the control of one country to another following World War I, or the legal instruments that contained the internationally agreed-upon terms for administering the territory on behalf of the League of Nations. These were of the nature of both a treaty and a constitution, which contained minority rights clauses that provided for the rights of petition and adjudication by the Permanent Court of International Justice.
The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty signed on 28 June 1919. As the most important treaty of World War I, it ended the state of war between Germany and most of the Allied Powers. It was signed in the Palace of Versailles, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which led to the war. The other Central Powers on the German side signed separate treaties. The United States never ratified the Versailles treaty and made a separate peace treaty with Germany. Although the armistice of 11 November 1918 ended the actual fighting, it took six months of Allied negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. Germany was not allowed to participate in the negotiations—it was forced to sign the final result.
The San Remo conference was an international meeting of the post-World War I Allied Supreme Council as an outgrowth of the Paris Peace Conference, held at Castle Devachan in Sanremo, Italy, from 19 to 26 April 1920. The San Remo Resolution passed on 25 April 1920 determined the allocation of Class "A" League of Nations mandates for the administration of three then-undefined Ottoman territories in the Middle East: "Palestine", "Syria" and "Mesopotamia". The boundaries of the three territories were "to be determined [at a later date] by the Principal Allied Powers", leaving the status of outlying areas such as Zor and Transjordan unclear.
The Fourteen Points was a statement of principles for peace that was to be used for peace negotiations in order to end World War I. The principles were outlined in a January 8, 1918 speech on war aims and peace terms to the United States Congress by President Woodrow Wilson. However, his main Allied colleagues were skeptical of the applicability of Wilsonian idealism.
The Paris Peace Conference was the formal meeting in 1919 and 1920 of the victorious Allies after the end of World War I to set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers. Dominated by the leaders of Britain, France, the United States and Italy, it resulted in five treaties that rearranged the maps of Europe and parts of Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands, and also imposed financial penalties. Germany and the other losing nations had no voice in the Conference's deliberations; this gave rise to political resentments that lasted for decades.
Major Sir William Newenham Montague Orpen, was an Irish artist who worked mainly in London. Orpen was a fine draughtsman and a popular, commercially successful painter of portraits for the well-to-do in Edwardian society, though many of his most striking paintings are self-portraits.
The Quai d'Orsay is a quay in the 7th arrondissement of Paris. It is part of the left bank of the Seine opposite the Place de la Concorde. The Quai becomes the Quai Anatole-France east of the Palais Bourbon, and the Quai Branly west of the Pont de l'Alma.
The partition of the Ottoman Empire was a geopolitical event that occurred after World War I and the occupation of Istanbul by British, French and Italian troops in November 1918. The partitioning was planned in several agreements made by the Allied Powers early in the course of World War I, notably the Sykes–Picot Agreement, after the Ottoman Empire had joined Germany to form the Ottoman–German Alliance. The huge conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was divided into several new states. The Ottoman Empire had been the leading Islamic state in geopolitical, cultural and ideological terms. The partitioning of the Ottoman Empire after the war led to the domination of the Middle East by Western powers such as Britain and France, and saw the creation of the modern Arab world and the Republic of Turkey. Resistance to the influence of these powers came from the Turkish National Movement but did not become widespread in the other post-Ottoman states until the period of rapid decolonization after World War II.
René Massigli was a French diplomat who played a leading role as a senior official at the Quai d'Orsay and was regarded as one of the leading French experts on Germany, which he greatly distrusted.
Events from the year 1919 in France.
The Big Four or the Four Nations refer to the four top Allied powers of World War I and their leaders who met at the Paris Peace Conference in January 1919. The Big Four is also known as the Council of Four. It was composed of Georges Clemenceau of France, David Lloyd George of the United Kingdom, Vittorio Emanuele Orlando of Italy, and Woodrow Wilson of the United States.
The Racial Equality Proposal was an amendment to the Treaty of Versailles that was considered at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. Proposed by Japan, it was never intended to have any universal implications, but one was attached to it anyway, which caused its controversy. Japanese Foreign Minister Uchida Kōsai stated in June 1919 that the proposal was intended not to demand the racial equality of all coloured peoples but only that of members of the League of Nations.
Statesmen of World War I is an oil on canvas painting by Sir James Guthrie, completed in 1930, shortly before Guthrie's death. It was commissioned by South African financier Sir Abraham Bailey, 1st Baronet to commemorate the politicians and statesmen of Britain and its Dominions who held office during the First World War. It was donated to the National Portrait Gallery in 1930, shortly after it was completed.
The United Kingdom declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, two days after Germany invaded Poland. France also declared war on Germany later the same day.
The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors, Versailles, 28 June 1919 is an oil-on-canvas painting by Irish artist William Orpen, completed in 1919. It was one of the paintings commissioned from Orpen to commemorate the Peace Conference at Versailles in 1919. The work is held by the Imperial War Museum in London.
To the Unknown British Soldier in France is an oil-on-canvas painting by Irish artist Sir William Orpen, exhibited in one state in 1923 and then modified in 1927. It was one of three paintings commissioned from Orpen to commemorate the Peace Conference at Versailles in 1919. The work is held by the Imperial War Museum in London.
Events from the year 1919 in Italy.
The Foreign policy of the Woodrow Wilson administration deals with American diplomacy, and political, economic, military, and cultural relationships with the rest of the world during the Presidency of Woodrow Wilson, 1913–1921. Although Wilson had no experience in foreign policy, he made all the major decisions, usually with the top advisor Edward M. House. His foreign policy was based on the messianic philosophical viewpoint wherein he imagined America had the utmost obligation to spread its principles while reflecting the 'truisms' of American thought.
The Central Syrian Committee was an organization active during after World War I, seeking the independence and the unity of Syria. It lobbied for an autonomous and indivisible Syria extending from the Taurus mountains to the Isthmus of Suez, and from the Mediterranean to the banks of the Euphrates and beyond. The movement did not consider Palestine as a separate political entity.