Spa Conference Of 1920
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The Spa Conference was a meeting between the
Supreme War Council The Supreme War Council was a central command based in Versailles that coordinated the military strategy of the principal Allies of World War I: Britain, France, Italy, the United States, and Japan. It was founded in 1917 after the Russian Revolu ...
and the government of the
Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...
in
Spa, Belgium Spa (; ) is a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality and City status in Belgium, city of Wallonia in the Liège Province, province of Liège, Belgium, whose name became an eponym for spa, mineral baths with supposed curative properties. It is ...
on 5–16 July 1920. The main topics were German disarmament, coal shipments to the Allies and war reparations.


Attendees

The Spa Conference was the first post-war conference to include German representatives. The Allies considered that if there were violations of the peace treaty and issues concerning reparations it would be better to discuss the problems face-to-face than through an exchange of notes. The conference was attended by heads of state, heads of government and foreign secretaries. The attendees included British and French Prime Ministers
David Lloyd George David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. A Liberal Party (United Kingdom), Liberal Party politician from Wales, he was known for leadi ...
and
Alexandre Millerand Alexandre Millerand (; – ) was a French politician who served as President of France from 1920 to 1924, having previously served as Prime Minister of France earlier in 1920. His participation in Waldeck-Rousseau's cabinet at the start of the ...
, German Chancellor
Constantin Fehrenbach Constantin Fehrenbach, sometimes erroneously Konstantin Fehrenbach, (11 January 1852 – 26 March 1926), was a German politician who was one of the major leaders of the Catholic Centre Party. He served as president of the Reichstag in 1918 and ...
. The British and French ambassadors to Germany, Lord d'Abernon and Charles François Laurent, were invited to the Conference and tasked with supervision of reparation payments and control of the Berlin-based
Reparation Commission The Reparation Commission, also Inter-Allied Reparation Commission (sometimes "Reparations Commission"), was established by the Treaty of Versailles to determine the level of World War I reparations which Germany should pay the victorious Allies ...
.


Discussions


Coal shipments

Contrary to German expectations the conference did not focus on the issue of
war reparations War reparations are compensation payments made after a war by one side to the other. They are intended to cover damage or injury inflicted during a war. War reparations can take the form of hard currency, precious metals, natural resources, in ...
but was initially dominated by the topic of disarmament, also part of the
Treaty of Versailles 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 Allies of World War I, Allied Powers. It was signed in the Palace ...
. Due to current events the coal negotiations then moved to centre stage. The issue of coal pertained to shipments from Germany to France, Belgium and Italy according to Art. 236 of Part VIII of the Versailles Treaty. In a protocol signed on 19 August 1919, Germany had agreed on these deliveries, but due to the uprisings of spring 1920 (
Kapp Putsch The Kapp Putsch (), also known as the Kapp–Lüttwitz Putsch (), was an abortive coup d'état against the German national government in Berlin on 13 March 1920. Named after its leaders Wolfgang Kapp and Walther von Lüttwitz, its goal was to ...
,
Ruhr uprising The Ruhr uprising () or March uprising () was an uprising that occurred in the Ruhr region of Germany from 13 March to 6 April 1920. It was a Left-wing politics, left-wing workers' revolt triggered by the call for a Kapp Putsch#General Strike ...
) and associated strikes in the coal industry, it had been unable to comply. Discussion of the coal issue, which began on 9 July, soon showed that the Allied side was unwilling to compromise. At the very beginning threats about sanctions were issued, with Millerand acting as the spokesman on the Allied side. After days of tough negotiations, the talks almost broke down on 14 July. On 16 July, Fehrenbach and foreign minister
Walter Simons Walter Simons (24 September 1861 – 14 July 1937) was a German lawyer and politician. He was Foreign Minister of the Weimar Republic in 1920-21 and served as president of the ''Reichsgericht'' from 1922 to 1929. Early life Walter Simons was b ...
signed the Spa coal protocol as drawn up by the Allies. Germany promised to deliver 2 million tons of coal per month for six months. In exchange for the Allied right to insist on the delivery of specifics types or quality of coal, Germany was granted 5 Goldmark per ton to purchase food for the miners. In addition, the Allies agreed to monthly advance payments for the coal. The German side did not sign up to the Allied threat that missed deliveries would be answered by military occupation of the Ruhr or other German territories. Despite Allied financial concessions the coal agreement dealt a heavy blow to the German economy. Supply of coal had been adequate before the conference, but now domestic bottlenecks emerged that damaged output of the iron and steel industry, the railways and coal conversion industry.


War reparations

The German foreign minister, Walter Simons only got a chance on the afternoon of 10 July to outline the German position on reparations. He mostly followed a proposal endorsed by the cabinet beforehand, and avoided naming any hard numbers or dates. On 12 July, the German delegation handed over a number of proposals, once again without definite sums, calling for a total of 30 annual payments. On 13 July these proposals were discussed by a sub-committee of the conference but the concurrent coal discussions had escalated to such a degree that debate on this issue was stopped. The topic was only revisited a few weeks later at a conference in Geneva. There was no settlement of the total sum of German reparations, but the shares of the recipients were fixed: France 52%, UK 22%, Italy 10%, Belgium 8% with the remainder (8%) distributed among the other Allied nations.


Disarmament

The discussions of disarmament focused on the strength of the German army and the treatment of the ''
Sicherheitspolizei The often abbreviated as SiPo, is a German term meaning "security police". In the Nazi Germany, Nazi era, it referred to the state political and criminal investigation security agency, security agencies. It was made up by the combined forces of ...
'', paramilitary police units. The German side arrived with the negotiation goal of a 200,000-man army and the intent to keep the police units, while possibly making concessions on their equipment. However, on this issue also the Allied side was unwilling to move. By the second day the Allies threatened to break off the talks and to implement sanctions unless the German delegation abandoned the 200,000-target. The German counterproposal agreed to 100,000 men but asked for a longer period of implementation. This was rejected by the Allies and on 8 July they handed over a note that specified their position and demanded its signature by the Germans by the next day. Fehrenbach contacted Berlin and on the morning of 9 July his cabinet agreed, but instructed the delegation not to sign the sanction threat the protocol contained. The protocol signed by Fehrenbach and Simons on 9 July called for ''Sicherheitspolizei'' and militias to be disarmed immediately and for laws to be passed to disarm the general population. The regular German army was scheduled to be reduced to 100,000 men by 1 January 1921 (this was less than six months away, but later than initially demanded by the Allies), conscription was to be abolished and replaced by a professional army and substantial materiel was to be handed over to the Allies. This was backed up by an Allied threat to occupy additional German territory in case of violations. However, the German side introduced a proviso clause that they did not accede to this last point.


Other topics

Other controversial issues included the trial of German war criminals and the status of
Gdańsk Gdańsk is a city on the Baltic Sea, Baltic coast of northern Poland, and the capital of the Pomeranian Voivodeship. With a population of 486,492, Data for territorial unit 2261000. it is Poland's sixth-largest city and principal seaport. Gdań ...
. There was also discussion of the territorial dispute over
Cieszyn Silesia Cieszyn Silesia, Těšín Silesia or Teschen Silesia ( ; or ; or ) is a historical region in south-eastern Silesia, centered on the towns of Cieszyn and Český Těšín and bisected by the Olza River. Since 1920 it has been divided betwe ...
between the
Second Polish Republic The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 7 October 1918 and 6 October 1939. The state was established in the final stage of World War I ...
and
Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...
. After the conference, on 28 July 1920, the territory was divided between the states leaving
Trans-Olza Trans-Olza (, ; , ''Záolší''; ), also known as Trans-Olza Silesia (), is a territory in the Czech Republic which was disputed between Poland and Czechoslovakia during the Interwar Period. Its name comes from the Olza River. The history of ...
with a sizable Polish minority on the Czech side of the border. This division also created further future animosities between these two countries.


See also

* Curzon Line *
Spa Conferences (First World War) The Spa Conferences (First World War) were several conferences held in 1918 bringing together the leaders of the German Empire, Imperial ReichBetween 1871 and 1945 the official name of the Unification of Germany, German national state was ''Deuts ...
* Spa Conference (2-3 July 1918) *
Spa Conference (29 September 1918) The Spa conference of September 29, 1918 is the last important conference between the main political and military leaders of the German Empire, Reich,Between 1871 and 1945, the official name of the German state was Deutsches Reich. then engaged in ...


References


Sources

* * * {{coord, 50, 29, 47, N, 5, 53, 14, E, type:landmark_source:kolossus-frwiki, display=title July 1920 in Europe 1920 in Germany 1920 in Poland 1920 in Czechoslovakia Cieszyn Silesia Diplomatic conferences in Belgium 20th-century diplomatic conferences 1920 in international relations Czechoslovakia–Poland relations 1920 conferences Spa, Belgium World War I conferences Foreign relations of the Second Polish Republic