HISTORICAL COMMITTEE at the TOWN HALL
The Monday morning session of the Historical Committee closed with quite a large amount of work and debate and the afternoon session was probably even more heated. The Committee’s work started with a new clause, submitted by the Ottoman Empire with the signature of all the other world empires, that proposed that empires have the right to keep their territories as long as they guarantee the safety and the rights of the many ethnicities under their territory. This clause was obviously the opposite of the one that the committee previously approved on Monday morning that, as written in the previous issue of the CFMUNEWS, stated that Poland should be made independent and that the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the German Empire and Russia should let the Polish territory and people be independent. However the most surprising part is that this new clause found the agreement of the majority of the countries and was eventually approved. This clause probably passed due to the ability of the emperors to persuade the other sovereigns, but the fact that the delegates voted for two completely different clauses in less than a day is quite shocking. However the debate then proceeded as usual and Hungary proposed a new clause stating that reducing the armaments of each country to the lowest point could be something dangerous, since a country could keep producing armaments secretly and become stronger than the others. This clause was then voted on and passed.
After that the USA proposed another clause that suggested the creation of an organisation, financed by the League of Nations, that will ensure that no country is stocking military material in order to make war. This clause was strongly related to the previous one, as it represented a solution to the problem in question, so it was approved. The last clause proposed to punish the country that seemed the only cause of WWI: Germany. The Countries were not able to punish the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as it had collapsed.
The conditions proposed by the countries were initially really harsh: the payment of all the damage caused by the war, the destruction of the German armaments in order to prevent future conflicts, the restitution of every conquered territory and to bring Germany to its knees financially. This harsh position was strongly supported by the French leader, who stated that Germany should pay for every single damage and that all of these conditions were totally legitimate. This position also found the opposition of Germany itself, that said that these conditions would affect innocent Germans too and that they would increase the level of anger towards the European countries.
Germany also claimed that the French leader, Clemenceau, also called “the Tiger”, is actually just a little cat that tries to be more important than it actually is. The other countries in the end agreed more with Germany and they canceled the last condition, that stated that Germany should be brought to its knees economically, and the first point was also modified, as all the countries agreed that Germany must pay only a sustainable part of the damage caused by war.
Federico Guiglielmotti