The Sky of the Night of the Treaty of Versailles
On June 28, 1919, in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles, the plenipotentiaries of the Allied powers and Germany signed the treaty ending World War I. Five years of carnage, ten million dead, the map of Europe redrawn. This star map captures the starry vault as it appeared above Versailles on that summer night when the world tried to heal its wounds — already carrying within it the seeds of the next conflict.
Historical context
On June 28, 1919, exactly five years to the day after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo — the spark that had set the world ablaze — representatives of thirty-two nations gathered in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles to sign the most consequential treaty of the twentieth century. The Great War, as it was then called, was over. But the peace that was born that day carried within it the seeds of a catastrophe still more terrible.
The Hall of Mirrors, masterpiece of Baroque architecture, seventy-three meters long, illuminated by three hundred and fifty-seven mirrors reflecting the light of twenty thousand candles, had been chosen with clear symbolic intent. It was in this very gallery that, on January 18, 1871, Wilhelm I had been proclaimed Emperor of Germany following France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. Forty-eight years later, France compelled a vanquished Germany to sign its capitulation in the same hall. The revenge was complete.
The treaty was draconian. Germany lost thirteen percent of its European territory and ten percent of its population. Alsace and Lorraine returned to France. West Prussia and Posen went to Poland, resurrected after one hundred and twenty-three years of absence from the map. The Saar was placed under international administration. German colonies were redistributed among the victors. The German army was limited to one hundred thousand men, with no air force, no tanks, no heavy artillery. And above all, Article 231 — the infamous "war guilt clause" — attributed to Germany and its allies the sole responsibility for the conflict, opening the way to colossal financial reparations.
That evening, as delegations departed Versailles and the great fountains of the palace played in celebration, the summer sky offered a magnificent spectacle above the palace. The sun set late in this end of June, and twilight stretched into a long golden agony. The first stars appeared around ten o'clock, timid in the still-bright sky.
Scorpius, with the red heart of Antares, dominated the southern sky. This red giant star, whose name means "rival of Mars" — Mars, the god of war — seemed singularly appropriate on this night when the world attempted to end the deadliest conflict humanity had ever known. Sagittarius rose east of Scorpius, his celestial bow aimed at the center of the Milky Way.
Jupiter, the planet of justice and authority, shone in the evening sky, as though presiding over the signing of this treaty that claimed to establish a new world order. Lyra, with the brilliant Vega, sparkled near the zenith, while the Summer Triangle — Vega, Deneb, and Altair — was beginning to form in the eastern sky, promise of warm nights to come.
Ursa Major descended toward the northwest, its stars still faithfully pointing toward Polaris. Arcturus, the guardian of the Bear, shone high in the western sky, its orange light contrasting with the blue-white brilliance of Vega. The Milky Way, that river of light, began to unfurl from northeast to southwest, crossing the sky like a celestial scar — a luminous echo of the trenches that had scarred the face of Europe.
Georges Clemenceau, the "Tiger," president of the Peace Conference and principal architect of the treaty on the French side, was eighty-seven years old. This man who had seen the defeat of 1871, who had been mayor of Montmartre during the siege of Paris, who had carried France to victory as prime minister in 1917-1918, contemplated his work with satisfaction mingled with anxiety. "We have won the war," he had said, "now we must win the peace." He knew it would be harder.
Woodrow Wilson, the American president, had brought his Fourteen Points and his dream of a League of Nations that would make war impossible. But the American Senate would refuse to ratify the treaty, and the United States would never join the League of Nations, depriving the institution of the power needed to maintain peace.
David Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, navigated between French demands for security and his own conviction that Germany must not be crushed to the point of becoming a breeding ground for resentment. He was right to worry. The reparations imposed on Germany — 132 billion gold marks, an astronomical sum — would fuel inflation, unemployment, and despair in the Weimar Republic, preparing the soil in which National Socialism would germinate.
John Maynard Keynes, the young British economist who had participated in the negotiations, resigned in protest. In his prophetic book "The Economic Consequences of the Peace," published in 1919, he predicted that the conditions imposed on Germany would lead to economic and political catastrophe. History would prove him tragically right.
Marshal Foch, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, uttered a phrase that still resonates: "This is not a peace. It is an armistice for twenty years." He had predicted with uncanny precision: twenty years and sixty-five days later, on September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland.
Today, this star map invites us to look up at the same stars that shone above Versailles on that night of false hope. The same Scorpius, the same Vega, the same Milky Way that illuminated the Hall of Mirrors still illuminate our summer nights. Treaties are signed and broken, empires rise and crumble, borders are drawn and redrawn, but the starry sky endures, an impassive witness to humanity's attempts to build peace upon the ruins of war.