The sixth plenary session was a private one, held on May 5, when the draft of the Treaty of Versailles was submitted to those who were supposed to have made it. There were protests on minor points. The major protest came from the Chinese, who declared that they could not sign the treaty if it contained the Shantung provisions, and from Marshal Foch, who announced that he considered the security given to France inadequate from the military point of view. The representatives of the smaller states were not asked, however, to approve the draft treaty. It was simply communicated to them in the same way that it was to be communicated to the Germans. At three o’clock on the afternoon of May 7, 1919, the terms of the treaty were delivered to the German delegation, which had been summoned for that purpose to Versailles. M. Clemenceau said that any observations would have to be made in writing within fifteen days, and would be answered promptly. The head of the German delegation, Count von Brockdorff-Rantzau, replied with heat and force to M. Clemenceau’s implication that Germany was a prisoner in the dock, solely responsible for the war and its horrors. He declined the invitation to admit the unilateral responsibility of Germany and the sole guilt of Germany for crimes during the war. He reproached the Allies for having taken six months to communicate their peace terms, during which they had maintained the food blockade, which had cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of German non-combatants. He reminded us that a pre-armistice agreement, binding upon both parties to the war, existed, and that a peace which could not be defended as just before the whole world would in the end cause resistance to the terms imposed. “Nobody will be capable of subscribing to it with a good conscience, for it will not be possible of fulfilment. Nobody would be able to take upon himself the guarantee of its execution which ought to lie in the signature.” Cold silence greeted the count’s speech. M. Clemenceau arose, and the meeting ended. But many who were present felt that they had not been witnessing the beginning of an era of peace. The chill presentiment of a more horrible war than the one that had just ended filled us.