Some Problems of the Peace ConferenceHaskins, Charles Homer
History
Some Problems of the Peace Conference
Haskins, Charles Homer
Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920); World War, 1914-1918 -- Territorial questions
The vote in the first zone, held February 10, 1920, resulted in a
decisive Danish majority of three to one, and led to occupation by
Denmark, as the treaty had provided. Feeling ran high in the second
zone, where the German government sought to influence the decision
by threats in the Reichstag; the struggle centred around Flensburg,
certain in either event to be a frontier town now that the third zone
had been eliminated. The plebiscite, held March 14, resulted decisively
for Germany, the vote in Flensburg being overwhelming and only a few
scattered villages on the islands voting for Denmark. The result failed
to satisfy either party entirely, a large Danish group still wanting
Flensburg, while in the first zone the Germans wished to recover
Tönder, where the voting had favored Germany. Indeed it remains to be
seen whether German hopes of recovery will be limited to Tönder.
One question of which Denmark and the Schleswigers showed great desire
to keep clear was the Kiel Canal. Even the widest limit of evacuation
proposed carefully left a belt of Schleswig territory between its
southern border and the canal, lest what was fundamentally a question
of popular rights might become complicated with a wholly distinct
international problem. Only in case of the internationalization of the
canal would its fate have reacted on the Schleswig problem by leaving
an isolated strip of German territory to the north which might then
have been separated from Germany and attached to the adjacent Danish
territory. Whatever might have been said for the internationalization
of this great waterway, the question was not seriously considered at
the Conference. The parallel to Suez and Panama was too close! The
treaty leaves the canal under German control, but provides that it
shall be open on terms of entire equality to the vessels of commerce
and of war of all nations at peace with Germany.[9]
The island of Heligoland, which England had seized from Denmark in
1807 and ceded to Germany in exchange for Zanzibar in 1890, is not
restored to either of its former owners. Instead it is stipulated
that all fortifications and harbor works there shall be destroyed by
German labor and at Germany’s expense, and that no similar works shall
be constructed in the future.[10] Immunity for the future might do
something to offset the great price which England had paid for Zanzibar
throughout the World War.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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