List of participants in the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920)

The Paris Peace Conference gathered over 30 nations at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris, France, to shape the future after World War I. The Russian SFSR was not invited to attend, having already concluded a peace treaty with the Central Powers in the spring of 1918. The Central Powers - Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire - were not allowed to attend the conference until after the details of all the peace treaties had been elaborated and agreed upon. The main result of the conference was the Treaty of Versailles with Germany.

Map of the World with the Participants in World War I. The Allies are depicted in green, the Central Powers in orange, and neutral countries in grey.

Signing delegations

The main delegations, with their secretaries and interpreters, in a painting by Herbert Arnould Olivier.

This list shows all nations and delegations who signed the Treaty of Versailles. All plenipotentiaries signed the treaty, except where indicated otherwise.^[1]

State	Plenipotentiaries	Notes
Australia	Billy Hughes Joseph Cook
Bolivia	Ismael Montes
Belgium	Paul Hymans Jules Van den Heuvel Emile Vandervelde
Brazil	João Pandiá Calógeras [pt] Rodrigo Otávio de Langgaard Menezes [es]
Canada	Robert Borden[a] Charles Doherty Arthur Sifton	Signed under 'British Empire'. Prime Minister Borden fought successfully for Canada to have its own seat at the Conference, which the British and Americans eventually relented too, opening the doors to allowing Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, and South Africa to send representatives as well. Borden also insisted that he be included among those leaders to sign the Treaty of Versailles; however, it was agreed that Canada would sign under the British Empire.
China	Lu Zhengxiang[a] Wellington Koo[a] Cao Rulin[a]	Many in China felt betrayed as the German territory in China was handed to Japan. Wellington Koo refused to sign the treaty and the Chinese delegation was the only nation that did not sign the Treaty of Versailles at the signing ceremony. At the time of the Paris Peace Conference there were two governments claiming to be the legitimate government of China: the Beiyang Government in Beijing, and Dr Sun Yat-sen's Guangzhou based Kuomintang (KMT) movement. However, they worked together to create the united diplomatic team that would plead China's case in Paris.
Cuba	Antonio Sánchez de Bustamante y Sirven
Czechoslovakia	Karel Kramář Edvard Beneš
Ecuador	Enrique Darn y de Alsua
France	Georges Clemenceau Stephen Pichon Louis-Lucien Klotz André Tardieu Jules Cambon
Germany	Hermann Müller Johannes Bell	Germany were excluded from the negotiations, but Hermann Müller and Johannes Bell, as government ministers in the new Weimar Republic, signed the treaty as representatives of Germany on 29 June 1919.
Greece	Eleftherios Venizelos Nicolas Politis
Guatemala	Joaquín Méndez
Haiti	Tertullien Guilbaud
Hejaz	Rustam Haidar Abdul Hadi Aouni	Later absorbed into Saudi Arabia.
Honduras	Policarpo Bonilla
India	Edwin Samuel Montagu Ganga Singh
Italy	Vittorio Emanuele Orlando[a] Sidney Sonnino Guglielmo Imperiali Silvio Crespi
Japan	Saionji Kinmochi Makino Nobuaki Chinda Sutemi Matsui Keishirō
Liberia	Charles D. B. King
New Zealand	William Ferguson Massey
Nicaragua	Salvador Chamorro
Panama	Antonio Burgos
Peru	Carlos de Candamo
Poland	Ignacy Jan Paderewski Roman Dmowski
Portugal	Afonso Costa Augusto Soares
Romania	Ion I. C. Brătianu Constantin Coandă
Serbs, Croats and Slovenes	Nikola Pašić Ante Trumbić Milenko Radomar Vesnić Slobodan Jovanović[a] Miodrag Ibrovac[a]	Later Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Siam	Charoonsakdi Kritakara Traidos Prabandhu
South Africa	Jan Smuts Louis Botha
United Kingdom	David Lloyd George Bonar Law Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner Arthur Balfour George Barnes
United States	Woodrow Wilson Robert Lansing Henry White Tasker H. Bliss	See also American Commission to Negotiate Peace.
Uruguay	Juan Antonio Buero

1. Non-signatory

Other national representatives

Delegation from the First Republic of Armenia during the Paris Peace Conference.

Delegation from the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan in Hôtel Claridge [fr] during the Paris Peace Conference.

Despite not signing the treaties, other delegations were sent to the Paris Peace Conferences, some uninvited, in order to represent their national interests.

Nation	Representatives	Notes
Arab delegation	Faisal Lawrence of Arabia	Faisal, later King of Iraq, advocated for an independent Arab state. T.E. Lawrence acted as the delegation's translator.[2][3]
First Republic of Armenia	Avetis Aharonian Hamo Ohanjanyan Armen Garo	[citation needed]
Aromanian delegation	National Committee of the Pindus	Attempted to establish an autonomous Aromanian entity.[4]
Assyrian delegation	Bishop Aphrem Baroum	Attempted to establish an autonomous Assyrian entity in the Assyrian homeland.[5]
Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan	Alimardan bey Topchubashov	[citation needed]
Belarusian Democratic Republic	Anton Luckievich	Attempted to gain international recognition of the independence of Belarus.[6]
Estonia	Jaan Poska Nikolai Köstner Jaan Tõnisson Ants Piip Karl Robert Pusta Mihkel Martna Eduard Laaman Joakim Puhk	Attempted to gain recognition of the independence of Estonia.[7][8]
Democratic Republic of Georgia	Nikolay Chkheidze Irakli Tsereteli Zurab Avalishvili	[citation needed]
Irish Republic	Seán T. O'Kelly	The unrecognized Irish Republic sent representatives in hope the republic declared at the Easter Rising in 1916 would be recognised, but they were ignored.[9][10]
Korean Provisional Government	Kim Kyu-sik	Representing the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, in-exile in China.[11]
Kurdish delegation	Şerif Pasha	Representing Society for the Rise of Kurdistan and its goal to establish an independent country, or an autonomous entity, in Kurdistan.[12]
Latvia	Jānis Čakste	Attempted to gain recognition of the independence of Latvia.[7][13]
Lebanon	Daoud Amoun (first delegation) Elias Peter Hoayek (second delegation) Abdullah El-Khoury (third delegation)	Three separate delegations were sent to attempt to: expand the borders of Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate and to gain recognition of the independence of Lebanon.[14][15][16]
Lithuania	Augustinas Voldemaras Antanas Smetona	Attempted to gain recognition of the independence of Lithuania.[7][17]
Montenegro	Nicholas I of Montenegro	The unification of Serbia and Montenegro on 18 November 1918 was contested by the exiled king of Montenegro. Despite Italian support, Montenegro was denied an official seat at the Peace Conferences, and the unification of Serbia and Montenegro was recognised.[18]
Newfoundland	William F. Lloyd	[19]
Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus	Abdulmajid Tapa Tchermoeff	[citation needed]
Persia	Mostowfi ol-Mamalek Vosugh od-Dowleh Mohammad Ali Foroughi	Iranians, as a neutral power, negotiated war reparations to both, Allies and Central Powers (suggesting Ottoman and Russian territory) due to Persian campaign.[20] Also solicited French or American help to seizure independence from Anglo-Russian spheres of influence in Persia.[21]
Russia	Sergey Sazonov	The Allied Powers refused to recognise the Bolshevik government of Russia, and instead invited representatives of the Russian Provisional Government (chaired by Prince Lvov), the successor to the Russian Constituent Assembly and the political arm of the Russian White movement.[22][23]
San Marino	M. Bucquet	[24]
Syria	Chekri Ganem Jamil Mardam Bey	See Central Syrian Committee.
Tripolitanian Republic		Lobbied for the independence of Tripolitania from Italian Libya.[25]
Ukrainian People's Republic	Hryhorii Sydorenko Mykhailo Tyshkevych	Lobbied for the independence of Ukraine and for support in its war against Russia.[26]
Vietnam	Nguyen Ai Quoc	Nguyen Ai Quoc (later known as Ho Chi Minh) petitioned the conference, seeking self determination and independence for the Vietnamese people.[27][28]
West Ukrainian People's Republic	Vasyl Paneiko	Lobbied for the independence of West Ukraine.[26]

Non-national representatives

Inter-Allied Women's Conference.

Other non-national or pan-national delegations were in Paris, hoping to petition the allies on issues relating to their causes.

Group	Major People	Notes
1st Pan-African Congress	W. E. B. Du Bois Ida Gibbs	Held in February 1919 in order to petition the allies on African issues.
Inter-Allied Women's Conference	Marguerite de Witt-Schlumberger	Convened and met from 10 February to 10 April 1919.
Zionist Organization	Dr. Chaim Weizmann	Lobbied for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.[29]

Oversights

An oft-stated myth is that the Principality of Andorra was not invited to attend, due to an 'oversight' and that the issue of Andorra being at war was eventually resolved on September 24, 1958, when a peace treaty was signed. This claim first appeared in North American newspapers in 1958^[30][31] and has been repeated since.^[32][33] In reality, Andorra did not officially participate in World War I.^[34] In 2014, the news outlet Ràdio i Televisió d'Andorra investigated the 1958 claim and could find no documentation of any original declaration of war. Historian Pere Cavero could only find an exchange of letters between the German consul in Marseille and the Catalan Ombudsman, where the former asks if there is a state of war with Andorra and the latter responds they could find nothing in their archive to indicate this.^[35]

References

1. Treaty of Versailles/Protocol . 1919 – via Wikisource.
2. "The Middle Eastern Prince Who Tried to Change the Treaty of Versailles". The Saturday Evening Post. 2019-06-28. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
3. "Story Map Journal". www.arcgis.com. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
4. Motta, Giuseppe (2011). "The Fight for Balkan Latinity. The Aromanians until World War I" (PDF). Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences. 2 (3): 252–260. doi:10.5901/mjss.2011.v2n3p252. ISSN 2039-2117.
5. Lundgren, Svante (2020). "Why did the Assyrian lobbying at the Paris Peace Conference fail?" (PDF). Chronos: Revue d'Histoire de l'Université de Balamand: 63–73.
6. Моладзь БНФ. "Чатыры ўрады БНР на міжнароднай арэне ў 1918–1920 г." Archived from the original on 3 July 2013. Retrieved 30 September 2015.
7. Trapans, Jan Arveds (1994). "The West and the Recognition of the Baltic States: 1919 and 1991. A Study of the Politics of the Major Powers". Journal of Baltic Studies. 25 (2): 153–173. doi:10.1080/01629779400000071. ISSN 0162-9778. JSTOR 43211894.
8. "Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs / Välisministeerium". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
9. Gannon, Darragh (25 January 2019). "January 1919: the Irish Republic, the League of Nations and a new world order". The Conversation. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
10. "Ireland and the Paris Peace Conference: How Sinn Féin Waged a Diplomatic War". IrishCentral.com. 2017-02-03. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
11. "Wilson Center Digital Archive". digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
12. Atmaca, Metin (2022-12-21). "The Road to Sèvres: Kurdish Elites and Question of Self-Determination After the First World War". International Journal of Conflict and Violence (IJCV). 16. doi:10.11576/ijcv-5686. ISSN 1864-1385.
13. Bražūne, Alda. "THE ROLE OF FRANCE IN THE FOREIGN POLICY OF LATVIA, 1921-1933" (PDF). Retrieved 2020-10-09.
14. "LEBANESE HISTORY". www.10452lccc.com. Retrieved 2024-03-15.
15. Simon, James J. (1996). "The Role of the Administrative Council of Mount Lebanon in the Creation of Greater Lebanon: 1918 - 1920". Journal of Third World Studies. 13 (2): 119–171. ISSN 8755-3449. JSTOR 45197729.
16. Simon, James J. (1995-06-01). "The Creation of Greater Lebanon, 1918-1920: The Roles and Expectations of the Administrative Council of Mount Lebanon". Air Force Inst of Tech Wright-Patterson Afb Oh.
17. "The state of Lithuania placing itself on the international stage in 1918–1924". valstybingumas.lt. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
18. Pećinar. "The Paris Peace Conference — Contemporary Balkans' perspective" (PDF). Retrieved 2020-10-09.
19. "William F. Lloyd". memim.com. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
20. Claims of Persia Before the Conference of the Preliminaries of Peace at Paris: Paris, March 1919. imp. Cadet. 1919.
21. EPOCH (2021-03-01). "Confronting British Imperialism: Iran at the Peace of Paris, 1919". Epochmagazine. Retrieved 2024-03-30.
22. "First World War.com - Who's Who - Sergei Sazonov". www.firstworldwar.com. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
23. Department Of State. The Office of Electronic Information, Bureau of Public Affairs (2007-08-01). "The Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles". 2001-2009.state.gov. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
24. "The Project Gutenberg eBook of THE INSIDE STORY OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE, by Dr. E.J. Dillon". www.gutenberg.org. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
25. "Tripolitania, Italian Colony (1922 - 1934)". Dead Country Stamps and Banknotes. 2014-01-04. Retrieved 2022-05-05.
26. "Paris Peace Conference". www.encyclopediaofukraine.com. Retrieved 2022-02-28.
27. "Ho Chi Minh seeks Vietnamese independence (1919)". alphahistory.com. 20 April 2016. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
28. Bria, Maggie (2017-03-30). "What Did the 1919 Paris Peace Conference Have to Do with the Vietnam War?". Bria Historica. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
29. "Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, The Paris Peace Conference, 1919, Volume IV - Office of the Historian". history.state.gov. Retrieved 2022-02-28.
30. "44-Year Mystery War Ends". St. Louis Globe-Democrat. Newhouse Newspapers. 19 September 1958. p. 20.
31. "World War I Ends in Andorra". The New York Times. United Press International. 25 September 1958. p. 66.
32. Reich, Herb (2012). Lies They Teach in School: Exposing the Myths Behind 250 Commonly Believed Fallacies. New York: Skyhorse Publication, Inc. p. 52. ISBN 978-1616085964.
33. E.g., "Skin-flicks in Shangri-La", The Economist, 1974; Time, 1960.
34. Guillamet Anton, Jordi (2009). Nova aproximació a la història d'Andorra. ALTAIR. p. 216. ISBN 978-8493622046.
35. "Andorra va declarar la guerra a Alemanya el 1914?". AndorraDifusió. Ràdio i Televisió d'Andorra. 4 February 2014. Retrieved 12 March 2021.