Last time we talked about the Compiegne Armistice which ended
World War One and obligated the vanquished Germany to vacate all its illegally
acquisitioned territories. On January 18th of 1919, representatives of
27 nations, led by the US, British and French Presidents, gathered in Paris
to draw up a comprehensive peace treaty. Russia, still gripped by Civil
War, wasn't taking part in the conference.
The United States cashed in very comfortably on the World War
which effectively turned the once debt-ridden America into one of the world's
biggest lenders. Acting on the strength of its war-encouraged economy,
the United States now boasted a formidable army and navy. Britain, for
its part, had attained one of its most cherished goals - the German Navy
had ceased to exist! Moreover, the British, who now controlled part of
the German colonies, put the principle of self-determination at the forefront
of their vision of a post-war European makeup. The main thing was to ensure
peace trough disarmament and establish a League of Nations as the main
instrument of international peace. France, which had been the hardest hit
by the war, was yearning for vengeance and the slogan that the Germans
would have to "pay the full price" was very popular there.
The Versailles Peace treaty signed on June 28th of 1919 wrote
a much-awaited end to the First World War. Germany was to lose one-eighth
of its territory, pay huge war damages and face numerous restrictions all
aiming to undermine its military might.
US President Woodrow Wilson made sure that the charter of the
Lague of Nations was included in the text of the Versailles Treaty.
In Russia, meanwhile, the Civil War was raging on… The half a
million-strong White Guards, hopelessly outnumbered by the Red Army, were
fighting hard and, by autumn, their troops, led by Admiral Kolchak and
General Denikin, started gaining an upper hand and were even poised to
seize Moscow. But each time the White Armies were beaten back and, in the
early 1920, their whole movement was literally decapitates after Admiral
Kolchak had been handed over to the Reds and executed and the repeatedly
vanquished General Denikin had fled the country.
Despite all those trials and tribulations, they still managed
to open in Petrograd the country's best drama theater, partly thanks to
the valiant effort bent by writer Maxim Gorky and poet Alexander Blok…
John Browning, Oliver Winchester, Samuel Colt and Hiram Maxim
are known all over the world as the designers of weapon systems which have
extensively been used everywhere. The equally famous weapons designer Mikhail
Kalashnikov was born in Russia in 1919. Recuperating after a wound he suffered
in World War Two, Kalashnikov, then a 23 year-old young man, invented his
world-famous AK-47 submachine gun which the American historian Edward Izell
said ushered in a whole new era in weapons engineering. Mikhail Kalashnikov
opened a new chapter in the firearms design in the second half of the 20th
century. During the Vietnam War, the American GIs preferred the Russian-made
Kalashnikovs to their standard-issue M-16 rifles. Nearly a hundred modifications
are currently in use worldwide and they can even be seen gracing the national
emblems of a number of countries in Africa.
And now let us remember these following interesting things which
happened in the year 1919. In Britain, Lady Nancy Astor became the first
woman to win a seat in the House of Commons. In the United States, they
started celebrating Father's Day every third Sunday of June, a tradition
which has since been emulated by many other countries. In Russia, they
introduced the world's first forensic tests which quickly sent the crime
solvability figure up 75 percent .
THE 20th CENTURY:YEAR AFTER YEAR series
of historical programs is prepared by Vladimir Zhamkin.
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