Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 108, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 May 1919 — TREATY FRAMING IS SLOW PROCESS [ARTICLE]

TREATY FRAMING IS SLOW PROCESS

Negotiations of Moderii Covenants That Ended Wai% Have Often Taken Months. INTRIGUE COMMON FEATURE Great Issues Involved in the Settlements of the Last Three —Keenest Minds of Church Seek Advantage. New York. —The making of treaties has always been a time-consuming process since the days when the feudal lord or monarch could say to his beaten foe, accept these terms or die. Then the limits of personal force and ambition were the only curb on the victor’s demands, with the sons or daughters or other relatives to be pawns in the game, execution or marriage sealing the hateful bargain. But with the development of states into something more than the individual property of kings and emperors, and the broadening of international relations, the resulting clashes of arms, often lasting for years, were rarely brought to a close except after negotiations that lasted for weeks or months. Over the documents that set-' tied the religious, political, or territorial questions at issue, the keenest minds of church and state fought for advantage. Intrigues and secret deals were a normal incident of the battle of wits, when more than two countries were involved In the difficulty. Many of the peace treaties of the last three centuries are the landmarks of their period, ending or beginning an era in which the future development of peoples or nations was definitely determined. Peace of Westphalia. Such a history-making event was the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which ended the Thlrty ‘Years’ war—the last of the great conflicts between Catholicism and Protestantism. Beginning as a strife between German states, divided on religious lines, it finally involved France, Spain, Sweden. Portugal, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and many Italian states. In 1041 preliminaries of peace were agreed upon at Hamburg by the already wearied contestants, but It was three years before a congress to settle terms was opened and four years after that when first treaties were signed at Osnabruck and Munster, towns of Westphalia. A general and complete peace was finally signed at Munster on October 24, 1648. At Alx-la-Chapelle, on May 2, 1668, was signed the first treaty, known by the name of that town. This was the climax of the struggle between France and Spain for the possession of the Spanish Netherlands. On the death of Philip IV of Spain, Louis XIV claimed a large part of the Netherlands In the name of his wife, a daughter of Philip. The Dutch, alarmed by the French pretensions, which were backed by aggressive military action, summoned England and Sweden to her aid and halted the French advance. Under the treaty Louis kept portions of Flanders which his forces had overrun. The Peace of Ryswick, which was signed at the Dutch village on the outskirts of The Hague in 1697, ended a struggle of nine years between France and the Grand Alliance, a term which ultimately included England, Holland, Savoy, the Holy Roman empire. Brandenburg, Sweden, Spain, Saxony and the Palatinate. A congress of envoys held sessions during most of the summer pf 1697 and finally signed a treaty of peace on September 20. This virtually restored all territorial matters to the status quo ante, but the chief result was to check the ambitions of Louis, under whose rule France had becoirie the first power on the continent, supplanting Spain. Utrecht’s Epoch-Making Agreement. The Peace of Utrecht was the next great agreement between the quarrelsome powers of Europe. It was. in fact, a series of agreements between

The years 1713 and 1715 that brought jo a close the war of the Spanish succession (known in American history in its later aspect as Queen Anne’s war). To prevent the union of Spain and France under Bourbon rule, William 111 of England formed another grand alliance, which Included Austria and several German states, including Prussia. An armistice was concluded between France and England in 1712, but it was not unt|l April 13, 1713, that peace was. signed at Utrecht between France on the one side and England on the other. Spain settled with her enemies in the next two years. A second treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, signed October 18, 1748, marked the conclusion of the war of the Austrian succession, notable for the long and successful effort of Maria Theresa to keep her throne against a host of claimants. - First of the treaties that vitally affected the future of North America was that of Paris, which ended the Seven Years’ war. Beginning with a struggle between Prussia and Austria, the war spread to the German states, Russia, France, Sweden, England and Portugal. Preliminaries of peace were signed on November 3, 1762, but the definitive treaty was not consummated till February 10, 1763. In the settlement, which was of a far-reach-ing character, France lost Canada and much of her India possessions to England. The latter also established her supremacy oh the seas. Just 20 years later it was England’s fate to sign a treaty acknowledging the independence of her former American colonies, and simultaneously to make peace with France and Spain. The negotiations which ended the American Revolution were under way for months. Franklin, Jay, and John Adams, as America’s plenipotentiaries, signed the preliminaries of peace on August 30, 1782, but it was more than a year later (September 3, 1783) that the definite treaty was formally agreed to at Versailles. Treaty of Ghent. At Amiens, on March 27, 1802, England signed a treaty with Spain, France, and the Batavian republic, (Netherlands), wherein the first Napoleonic successes were recognized and accepted. Peace preliminaries had been arranged_at London nearly six months before. The Treaty of Ghent, which closed the second war of the United States with England, required more than four Months for negotiations. Another Treaty of Paris had only a few months before (May 30, 1814), been signed by France with all the allies, who hhd been fighting Bonaparte. By it all the territorial advantages won by Napoleon, were given back. At the dame time provision was made for the calling at Vienna of a conference to settle t}ie general affairs of Europe, disorganized and distracted by the long years of war. The congress of Vienna thus summoned, was the most remarkable assemblage of its kind the world had ever seen. All-of Europe, except Turkey, was represented by delegates, the number of those who assisted at the gathering being over five hundred. Opening on September 30. 1814, it lasted until June 9. 1815, or more than eight months. Crowned heads, including three emperors, were in attendance at various times. An ex-

traordinary round of festivities was provided, and amid it all the master dipfomats of the epoch (Talleyrand, Metternich and Castlereagh) played their games of intrigue. The unprecedented decisions of this congress dominated the course of European (statesmen for 40 years. The Crimean war (1854-6) was concluded by another Treaty of Paris, which admitted the Porte to the European concert and guaranteed the integrity of the Ottoman empire. The document was signed March 30, 1856, after nearly five weeks of negotiations. The Settlement of 1871. The Franco-Prussian war was brought to an end when preliminaries of a peace treaty were agreed to at Thiers on February 25, 1871. The formal treaty was taken up by a conference at Brussels on March 28. Signature -of the compact was accomplished at Frankfort on May 10, the negotiations thus lasting six weeks. After Russia’s overwhelming success in her war against Turkey in 1877-8, she enforced severe terms by the Treaty of San Stefano (March 3. 1878). Thereupon a congress of the powers was called at Berlin to settle questions involved in what Austria and Great Britain regarded as the undue aggrandizement of the Petrograd government. This gathering, which included among its delegates Salisbury, Beaconsfield, Bismarck, and Andrassy, met on June 13, and closed its labors just one mopth later. The treaty which was signed stripped Russia of a large share of the fruits of her victory. Settlement of the Spanish-American war in 1898 required negotiations that lasted two months and nine days. The first session of the envoys took place in Paris on October 1. In late November there seemed to be danger of a breaking off o£ ’the parley, but the difficulty was smoothed out and the treaty was signed on December 10. It took 27 days for the Russian and Japanese delegates to reach an agreement at Portsmouth, N. H„ in 1899, thus ending their comparatively brief hut sanguinary war. They held their first meeting on August 9, and peace was signed on September 5. First Hague Conference. It was in this same year that the first peace conference was held at The Hague. At the Instance of the czar of Russia 21 European countries and the United States, Mexico, China, Japan, Persia and Slam sent representatives to confer with regard to concerted action to maintain general peace. The first meeting of this conclave, which was hailed at the time ns a highly promising effort for the banishment of war, was held on May 18, 1899. Conclusions were reached and a final act signed on July 29, the conference having thus lasted two months and eleven days. Even more impressive in the character of the personnel and the seriousness of the deliberations was the second Hague conference, held in 1907 at the call of President Roosevelt. Forty-six nations sent diplomats, international experts, and political leaders to this gathering, and the conclusions, accepted or rejected by the various powers in the discussion of the broad range of proposals, aiming for peace or at least a mitigation of war’s evils, have an almost cynical interest in the light of the great war. The conference was in session for four months and three days, opening on June 15 and adopting a statement of principles on October 18. The present assemblage in Paris is in effect a Hague conference and a treaty-making body rolled into one. Twenty-six countries are formally rep-, resented in the plenary gatherings.