Royal Spaces
Château de Versailles
The declaration of the new German Empire at a ceremony in the Hall of Mirrors, the château of Versailles’s ornate central gallery, at the end of the Franco-Prussian war in January 1871 was a national humiliation for France. Almost half a century later, French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau insisted that the Hall of Mirrors should be used for the signing of the punitive peace treaty with Germany at the end of World War One. On 28th June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Treaty of Versailles was signed by national leaders, overseen by crowd of around 1,000 diplomats, military observers and advisers. Germany was represented by just two individuals, Foreign Minister Hermann Müller and Colonial Minster Johannes Bell, whose ‘isolated and pitiable’ status was memorably described by British diplomat Harold Nicolson. The entrance ticket shown is that of Alan Ogilvie, a young intelligence officer at the time and later Professor of Geography at the University of Edinburgh, who witnessed these momentous events.
Further information:
The official website of the Château de Versailles contains interesting links to textual and visual sources, including some audio-visual content on the uses to which the buildings and gardens were put during World War One: http://en.chateauversailles.fr/
On William Orpen’s famous painting of the signing of the peace treaty in the Hall of Mirrors on 28th June 1919, see: https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/20780
For a British Pathé newsreel: https://www.britishpathe.com/video/treaty-of-versailles-can-4
Palais Royal, Paris
The former royal palaces of central Paris, including the Louvre and the Palais Royal, have provided capacious accommodation for national and international organisations committed to liberal and republican ideals ever since 1789. In 1925, the French government provided space in the Palais Royal for the International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation (IIIC), intended as an administrative centre for the under-resourced International Committee of Intellectual Co-operation (ICIC), established three years earlier by the League of Nations to promote internationalism through science, education and culture. The direct precursor of UNESCO, which was initially headquartered in the Hôtel Majestic during the late 1940s and 1950s, the IIIC organised International Studies Conferences and commissioned research projects throughout the interwar years. The Palais Royal rooms occupied by the IIIC between the wars are now used by the Conseil Constitutionel, established in October 1958 under the constitution of the French Fifth Republic to ensure that all laws passed in France are constitutionally legitimate.
Further information:
On the IIIC archives, part of the UNESCO archives, see https://atom.archives.unesco.org/ag-1-international-institute-of-intellectual-co-operation-iiic
On the Palais Royal today, see http://www.domaine-palais-royal.fr/en/
On the Conseil Constitutionel, see https://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/le-conseil-constitutionnel/le-palais-royal, which includes pages on the history of the building.
St James’s Palace, London
Before the construction of large-scale conference venues or institutional spaces, major international meetings depending on pre-existing public and private spaces, including state buildings, aristocratic houses, and royal palaces. The Round Table Conference was inaugurated by King George V on November 12th 1930 in the Royal Gallery of the Palace of Westminster but the conference took place in another Palace. Built for Henry VIII, St James’s Palace sat at the political and social heart of London. Having already hosted the London Naval Conference earlier that year, which worked towards international disarmament, it then became a space of intense international attention as the venue for the first two sittings of the Round Table Conference. Much media coverage focused on the fact that the ‘Round Table’, due to the number of delegates and the shape of the Queen Ann Drawing Room, was oval. Fitted out with a post office, telephone exchange, and press quarters, the Palace functioned well as a conference venue. It was, however, legendarily difficult to keep warm. Worried about how visiting Indian delegates would deal with London winters, the Palace was heated day and night with roaring fires. It was a popular and welcoming venue, an unexpectedly Tudor home for an imperial international conference. In 1936 it played host to a meeting of the League of Nations Council, aimed at diffusing tensions on the Franco-German border.
Further information:
For official information on the Palace: https://www.royal.uk/royal-residences-st-jamess-palace
On the outcome of the 1930 Naval Conference: https://www.loc.gov/law/help/us-treaties/bevans/m-ust000002-1055.pdf
For film footage of the 1936 meeting of the League of Nations Council at St James Palace: https://www.britishpathe.com/video/league-council
Buckingham Palace Dinner Party
Monarchies represent a tie to ancient forms of kinship and possession (of territory, people and the past). Yet the interwar age saw royal figures adapt to the threats and opportunities of internationalism. For centuries, the British royal family had stretched its sovereign bonds internationally across the globe, represented by Queen Victoria assuming the title in 1876 of Empress of India. On 4th November 1930 King-Emperor George V welcomed a special delegation of his subjects to Buckingham Palace, those ‘Indian Princes’ who were participating in the Round Table Conference. Many of these, like the Maharaja of Bikaner, were international statesmen in their own right, having participated in the First World War, signed the Treaty of Versailles, and represented India at the League of Nations. Whilst non-royal Indian delegates were invited to an afternoon tea party at the Palace, only the royal ‘Princes’ (Maharajas, a Nawab and the Aga Khan) were invited for a lavish dinner (the Prince’s wives were scheduled to have a private meeting with Queen Mary). The seating plan visually illustrates how an international conference allowed two aristocratic and royal hierarchies, European and Indian, to fit together, over dinner.
Further information:
For official information on the history and functioning of Buckingham Palace: https://www.royal.uk/search?tags%5B0%5D=Buckingham%20Palace
For portaits of the Maharajah of Bikaner: https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp00420/ganga-singh-maharaja-of-bikaner
For a review of David Cannadine’s “Ornamentalism” thesis about the interlocking of imperial hierarchies: https://www.academia.edu/3555259/Ornamentalism_How_British_saw_their_empire_by_David_Cannadine