Paris Peace Conf. 180.0201/13
Peace Congress (Paris), Protocol No. 1, Plenary Session of September 19, 1919
Presentation of the Conditions of Peace to the Plenipotentiaries of the Kingdom of Bulgaria
The Plenipotentiaries of the Kingdom of Bulgaria, their credentials having been verified and found to be in good and due form, were invited to go to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs on the 19th September, 1919, at 10 o’clock a.m., there to have the Conditions of Peace communicated to them.
On the appointed day the Plenipotentiaries of the Allied and Associated Powers, hereinafter enumerated, meet in the Salle de l’Horloge, and thereupon the Plenipotentiaries of the Kingdom of Bulgaria are ushered in.
The Session is then opened at 10.30 o’clock a.m., under the presidency of Mr. Georges Clemenceau, President.
- Present
- For the United States of
America:
- Honorable Frank Lyon Polk, Under-Secretary of State.
- Honorable Henry White, former Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipoteniary of the United States at Paris and Rome.
- For the British Empire:
- Sir Eyre Crowe, K. G. B., K. C. M. G., Minister Plenipotentiary, Assistant Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
- For France:
- Mr. Georges Clemenceau, President of the Council, Minister for War.
- Mr. Pichon, Minister for Foreign Affairs.
- For Italy:
- Mr. Vittorio Scialoja, Senator of the Kingdom.
- Mr. Maggiorino Ferraris, Senator of the Kingdom.
- For Japan:
- The Viscount Sutemi Chinda, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of His Majesty the Emperor of Japan at London.
- Mr. K. Matsui, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of His Majesty the Emperor of Japan at Paris.
- For Belgium:
- Mr. Rolin-Jaequemyns, Secretary-General of the Belgian Delegation.
- For Bolivia:
- Mr. Ismael Montes, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of Bolivia at Paris.
- For China:
- Mr. Lou Tseng-tsiang, Minister for Foreign Affairs.
- For Greece:
- Mr. Eleftherios Venizelos, President of the Council of Ministers.
- For the Hedjaz:
- Rustem Haidar.
- For Portugal:
- Dr. Affonso Costa, former President of the Council of Ministers.
- For Roumania:
- Mr. Nicolas Misu, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of His Majesty the King of Roumania at London.
- For the Serb-Croat-Slovene
State:
- Mr. Milenko R. Vesnitch, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of His Majesty the King of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes at Paris.
- For Siam:
- Prince Traidos Prabandhu, Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
- For Bulgaria:
- Mr. Theodore Theodoroff, President of the Council, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Public Worship.
- Mr. Wenelin Ganeff, Minister of Justice.
- Mr. Yanko Sakyzoff, Minister of Commerce, Industry, and Labour.
- Mr. Alexander Stamboliiski, Minister of Public Works.
- Mr. Michael K. Sarafoff, former Minister.
- For the United States of
America:
Mr. Clemenceau, President, delivers the following speech:—
“Gentlemen,—The text of the Conditions of Peace will be handed to you, the Plenipotentiaries of the Kingdom of Bulgaria, by the Secretary-General of the Conference.
“I have the honour to inform you that you should send in your observations in writing, and that you have a period of twenty-five days from the presentation of the Conditions of Peace in which to furnish these observations.
“The Supreme Council, after examining the observations furnished within the period laid down, will address a written reply to the Bulgarian Delegation stating the period within which the latter should send in its final reply on all questions.
“I request the Secretary-General of the Conference to hand the Treaty of Peace to the Plenipotentiaries of the Kingdom of Bulgaria.”
The text of the Conditions of Peace is handed to Mr. Theodoroff by the Secretary-General.
Mr. Theodoroff (Bulgaria) reads the following statement in French:—
“Mr. President, Gentlemen.—In speaking before this distinguished Assembly we do not seek to conceal from ourselves the critical situation in which our country is now placed. In contradiction with the feelings of her people, with the traditions of her policy, and with the manifest interests of her future, Bulgaria was plunged, under compulsion by ill-starred powers, into a senseless war. We are fully aware of the responsibilities which we incurred by this act, and, indeed, we realise to the full its extent and its gravity.
[Page 437]“No doubt, when time has brought about the healing effect which it is wont to exercise on past events, history will say that the policy followed by King Ferdinand and the Radislavov Cabinet was above all a violent constraint on the will of the Bulgarian people; history will say that this policy was only rendered possible by a fateful concatenation of events and errors; events, some of which were outside our control; errors, which were not all committed on our side; and the just testimony of history will greatly soften the harshness of the judgment which to-day weighs so heavily on the paths of our future.
“Nevertheless, if the Bulgarian people is, in its vast majority, innocent of the evil which has been done in its name, the Bulgarian State is responsible for it. We are here not only to defend the rights of Bulgaria, but it is likewise our desire to proclaim the faults which she has committed.
“We admit with the like sincerity that excesses were committed during the war in certain occupied regions. We have bound ourselves to punish the authors of those excesses pitilessly. Numerous prosecutions have already been initiated, some of them have reached a conclusion; the others will follow their inexorable course. Whatever be their rank, the malefactors who have tarnished the fair fame of our nation will all, without exception, receive the chastisement which they deserve.
“We feel, on the other hand, a grievous regret that our people, dominated by the compulsion exercised on it by its rulers, should have been involved in a fresh war with its neighbours, and by that fact had become an adversary of the Coalition of the Great Powers which represent Right and Democracy, Powers which the Bulgarian people by its very traditions was accustomed to regard as the natural protectors of its future.
“We are, in this connection, so deeply imbued with the sense of our responsibility, that if we had been summoned to one of the Congresses of former days where an implacable spirit of reprisals held sway and which, with no other thought but that of injuring the vanquished, sowed in each fresh Treaty the pernicious germs of former [past?] conflicts, we should not have had the courage to speak, for in such a case all speech would have been vain. Yet, in coming here, we are sustained by the idea that we are not appearing before enemies assembled to carry out a work of chastisement, but before a supreme Tribunal which has accepted the duty of stating and establishing the rights of peoples at the gravest and most perplexing moment in the history of humanity.
“The right of peoples is indestructible. In your exalted sense of justice you have, from the outset, placed it in an unassailable position. [Page 438] It is therefore permissible for a guilty State also, even a vanquished State, to invoke it.
“And if the truth be told, we have continued to invoke this right for forty years, since the time when the Congress of Berlin, in obedience to the play of the European combinations of the time, dismembered Bulgaria. Since then a great and burdensome duty has lain on us. From all the Bulgarian regions which remain in servitude there rang in our ears cries of anguish which demanded our succour. We obeyed the call of our blood, and we imposed on ourselves the greatest sacrifices.
“We have not always taken the right path; our experience as a young people, barely delivered from a long enslavement, was inadequate to cope with the formidable complexity of the task which history had assigned to us; the Sovereign whom events had placed upon our throne was far from qualified to supplement our lack of political skill. Nevertheless, the ideal which we have pursued, at moments when our actions were free, has always been a pure and legitimate one; it was based, and is still to-day based, on all the rights which may be conferred on a nation by history, ethnography, tradition, and international treaties.
“We have had the honour to set forth these rights in special memoranda. We will merely say now in passing that the testimony of foreigners of undeniable authority confirms them, that the populations concerned demand them, that our competitors of to-day have recognised them in recent times by covenants and admissions the importance of which cannot be diminished.
“That our rights are well-founded is clearly shown by the light of historical facts, but the manner in which events have developed in the Balkans since 1913 has begotten errors with regard to our attitude during this period of which we bear the whole weight. We are regarded as guilty of having betrayed our Allies in 1913, and of having entered the war in 1915 on the side of the Central Powers. We fully recognise the seriousness of these accusations. We have thought it our first and most imperious duty to hand to this honourable Conference two special statements in regard to the unfortunate circumstances in the midst of which the Bulgarian people was plunged into the war against its will and against its most intimate feelings. All the facts bear witness that the Bulgarian people did not wish for the German alliance; that alliance was imposed on it. It was, in the history of Bulgaria, like a kind of cataclysm happening at a moment of general upheaval in Europe. Our sole hope is that the Conference, in its exalted wisdom, will use the indulgence that is innate in great souls and generous minds in judging the misfortunes of our people.
[Page 439]“We have been reproached with following an Imperialist policy. The fact is that we have never desired anything more than the accomplishment of our unity. The Bulgarian people, firmly attached to what it regards as its legitimate patrimony, does not aspire to the inheritance of others. In a spirit of moderation, and in its desire to live in friendship with the Christian States which were its neighbours, it has, ever since 1878, sought to forget the Bulgarian districts which the Congress of Berlin had assigned to Serbia and Roumania. For nearly half a century our efforts, seconded by the generous views of the Western Powers and of Russia, had tended to one goal alone, and that was the liberation of our kinsmen whom the Congress of Berlin had left under Ottoman domination.
“Our claims, so far from being Imperialist ambitions, were, and are, but the translation into a national’ programme of what the Powers have unanimously recognised in past times as a work of justice and of European interest. Our claims only concern countries which Turkey herself, by the firman of 1871, placed in accordance with the wishes of the population under the jurisdiction of the Bulgarian Exarchate; which the Conference of Ambassadors held at Constantinople in 1876 included by a unanimous decision within the confines of an autonomous Bulgaria;1 which the Treaty of San Stefano assigned to the Bulgarian principality2 and the Congress of Berlin tore from Bulgaria solely for reasons in contradiction with the right of peoples.3
“The events of September and October 1918 have delivered Bulgaria from the long-drawn oppression which fettered her free will. Our democracy no longer finds obstacles placed in her path. Henceforward it is open to Bulgaria, of her free impulse, to reconstitute herself morally, to consolidate herself in the line of development which she has chosen in obedience to her true feelings, and make of herself a mainstay of peace and the instrument of civilisation in the East. In the course which thus lies open before her she has need of your indulgent support, and at this solemn moment we ask you for that support on her behalf.
“Bulgaria has not yet had the time to do all that is necessary to deserve the entire confidence of the Powers, whose verdict she awaits; but she will set herself, with all her energy and all her good faith, to justify in the future the credit which may be given to her and to make it good. To achieve this she has in herself all the necessary elements. The spirit of democracy which pervades her system of education; the equality of rights which, since the first day of her free [Page 440] existence, she granted throughout her territory to national minorities; the breath of regeneration which animates the new era into which she has just stepped prove that Bulgaria will be firmly attached to the system of the League of Nations, to which she would be proud and happy to find admission.
“The unceasing desire which the Bulgarian nation, since its awakening, has shown to educate itself, the hospitality which she has hastened to give to all foreigners who have come to bring her the benefits of civilisation, of commerce, and of industry, and lastly, the efforts which she has made to organise herself and develop herself in her domestic affairs, are guarantees, on the other hand, that Bulgaria will be open to all kinds of penetration, whether moral or economic, likely to aid in her recovery from all points of view.
“Our neighbours may likewise rest assured that, on the part of Bulgaria, who has regained the exercise of her free will, they have only to expect a desire for reconciliation and a spirit of concord. The Bulgarian nation itself has always been animated by feelings such as these. We may remind you that in 1912 it was the Bulgarian Government which, supported by the popular will, took the initiative in forming the Balkan Alliance. At first Serbia and Greece had no treaty with one another; each of them was separately bound to Bulgaria. This is not the least of the proofs of that sincere desire of the Bulgarian nation to live with its neighbours in good understanding and community of interest. It may be that in the past the Bulgarian nation has not always been able to fulfil its aspirations in this connection, but there is nothing to prevent their being made to triumph in the future. We state, in the name of the Bulgarian people and on behalf of those who are authorised to represent it for whatever purpose, that Bulgaria is ready to accept all the contractual or organised ties with her neighbours which may be thought desirable for insuring stable harmony in the Balkans and the peace of the world.
“Animated as we are by these intentions and ready to give proofs of them, we believe that we shall be permitted to address the following appeal to this exalted Assembly:—
“We have committed errors; we will suffer the consequences within the limits of equity. There is, however, one punishment which no crime justifies, and that is servitude. May such a servitude be spared to the Bulgarian nation and to its rights; may the victorious great nations who have undertaken to rebuild the world on the new bases which they have proclaimed grant us the means of rebuilding likewise our small State within its legitimate frontiers, for Bulgaria asks for nothing beyond them.
“The legitimate frontiers of Bulgaria have been fixed, and in a peremptory fashion, by history, ethnography, and international instruments. [Page 441] As, however, they are contested, may the populations concerned be called upon to express themselves in regard to their future by means of a plebiscite. We will submit to the result of their vote without reproaches and without bitterness.
“Right and justice have been the victors in the war, and they would gain their final triumph in the peace by a plebiscite.
“Mr. President, gentlemen, these words are our sincere thought.”
Nobody wishing to speak, the President declares the Session adjourned.
The Session is adjourned at 11 A.M.
President.
| P. Dutasta, | Secretary-General. | |
| J. C. Grew, | } | Secretaries. |
| H. Norman, | ||
| Paul Gauthier, | ||
| P. de Martino, | ||
| Ashida. | ||
- British and Foreign State Papers, vol. lxviii, pp. 1114, 1188.↩
- Foreign Relations, 1878, p. 866.↩
- Ibid., p. 895.↩