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The Signing of the Treaty of Versailles (June 28, 1919)

This oil painting by the Irish artist William Orpen (1878–1931) depicts the signing of the treaty in the Versailles Palace's Hall of Mirrors. Orpen served as an official painter of the British army on the Western Front from 1915 till war's end and was then tasked with the Paris peace talks and the signing of the resulting treaty. In the foreground, bent over with their backs to the observer, are the two German representatives, Minister of Transportation Johannes Bell (seated) and Foreign Minister Hermann Müller. Shortly before, the cabinet led by Philipp Scheidemann had resigned en masse to protest the treaty, which they saw as a “dictated peace.” Seated at the table from left to right are, for the United States, Army Chief of Staff Tasker H. Bliss, “Colonel” Edward M. House (the president’s chief negotiator), Ambassador Henry White, Secretary of State Robert Lansing, and President Woodrow Wilson; for France, Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau; for Great Britain, Prime Minister David Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer Andrew Bonar Law, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Arthur J. Balfour, Secretary of State for the Colonies Viscount Milner, and Minister without Portfolio G. N. Barnes; and, finally, the head of the Japanese delegation, Saionji Kimmochi. Standing behind them from left to right are Eleutherios Venizelos, prime minister of Greece; Affonso Costa, prime minister of Portugal; Lord Riddell, British press representative; Sir George E. Foster, a delegate for Canada; Nikola Paši (?), prime minister of Serbia; Stephen Pichon France’s foreign minster; Sir Maurice Hankey, Britain’s secretary of the imperial war cabinet; Britain’s secretary of state for India, Edwin S. Montagu; Major General Sir Ganga Singh, Maharaja of Bikaner; Italy’s Prime Minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando; Belgium’s foreign minister, Paul Hymans; South Africa’s prime minster, Louis Botha; and Australia’s prime minister, W. M. Hughes.

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The Signing of the Treaty of Versailles (June 28, 1919)

© Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Original: Sir William Orpen, Imperial War Museum, London