Galerie des Glaces, showing table where peace treaty was signed, Versailles, France

Galerie des Glaces, showing table where peace treaty was signed, Versailles, France

Galerie des Glaces, Versailles

18780

We are looking at the magnificent chamber in which the Peace Treaty was signed. At the ornamental table in the foreground, with its bronze and gilt decorations, the German delegates in silence and in bitterness of spirit affixed their names to the fateful document. Forty-eight years before, German officials had required France to sign, in this same chamber, a treaty far more humiliating and far more drastic in its terms. June 28, 1919, was a momentous day in the history of the world. At two o'clock on that Saturday afternoon an endless chain of motor cars bearing distinguished delegates from the Allied Nations, rolled through lines of French soldiers to the grand entrance of the Palace of Versailles. Their occupants passed up the marble stairway, through the "Queen's Apartments" to the Galerie des Glaces (Hall of Mirrors), while a dozen airplanes wheeled and circled above, and innumerable thousands of men and women packed the spacious parks and gardens. Double lines of infantry, with fixed bayonets, guarded the entrance to the palace. The Allied delegates were seated at the large U-shaped table which we see to the right of this vast chamber, from whose walls gleam more than 300 mirrors of finest plate glass. At 3:15 p. m. the first signatures were affixed to the treaty, those of the German delegates, who were then escorted to their seats. President Wilson then signed, followed by the Allied delegates in alphabetical order, and the ceremony was over.

1 stereograph : b&w

1 gelatine silver print stereograph (8 x 15 cm) mounted on card (9 x 18 cm)

Copyright. The Keystone View Company

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World War through the stereoscope