Conference of Ambassadors

The Conference of Ambassadors of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers was an inter-allied organization of the Entente in the period following the end of World War I. Formed in Paris in January 1920[1] it became a successor of the Supreme War Council and was later on de facto incorporated into the League of Nations as one of its governing bodies. It became less active after the Locarno Treaties of 1925 and formally ceased to exist in 1931[2] or 1935.[1]

Council of Ambassadors members (in blue) and observers (in red) as of 1919

The Conference consisted of ambassadors of Great Britain, Italy, and Japan accredited in Paris and French minister of foreign affairs. The ambassador of the United States attended as an observer because the United States was not an official party to the Treaty of Versailles.[1] French diplomat René Massigli was its secretary-general for its entire existence.[2] It was chaired by foreign ministers of France (among them Georges Clemenceau, Raymond Poincaré and Aristide Briand).

It was formed to enforce peace treaties and to mediate various territorial disputes among European states.[2] Some of the disputed regions handled by the Conference included Cieszyn Silesia (between Poland and Czechoslovakia), the Vilnius Region (between Poland and Lithuania), the Klaipėda Region (between Germany and Lithuania) and the Corfu Incident (between Italy and Greece). One of its major territorial decisions was made on 15 March 1923, in recognizing the eastern borders of Poland created following the Polish–Soviet War of 1920.[3] The Conference also recognized Polish sovereignty over the Vilnius region and Eastern Galicia[4][5]

The Conference of Ambassadors of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers was appointed by the League of Nations to take charge of the Greek/Albanian border dispute that turned into the Corfu Incident of 1923.

Jules Laroche and Massigli were the first two Secretaries-General. The Conference of Ambassadors are contradicted by the existence of the general secretariat and a row of committees and commissions, who worked as permanent or sometimes ad hoc advisers.[6]

See also

References
  1. Osmańczyk, Edmund Jan (2003). Anthony Mango (ed.). Encyclopedia of the United Nations and International Agreements. A to F (3rd ed.). Taylor & Francis. p. 434. ISBN 978-0-415-93921-8.
  2. Boyce, Robert W. D. (1998). French Foreign and Defence Policy, 1918-1940: The Decline and Fall of a Great Power. Routledge Studies in Modern European History. Routledge. p. 133. ISBN 978-0-203-97922-8.
  3. Text in League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. 15, pp. 260-265.
  4. Reddaway, W. F., ed. (2016). The Cambridge History of Poland. From Augustus II to Pilsudski (1697-1935). Cambridge University Press. p. 577. ISBN 978-1316620038.
  5. Gross, Jan Tomasz (2002). Revolution from Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of Poland's Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia. Princeton University Press. p. 3. ISBN 978-0691096032.
  6. Gerhard Paul Pink (1942). The Conference of ambassadors (Paris 1920-1931) its history, the theoretical aspect of its work, and its place in international organization. Geneva research centre. p. 18.
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