Inter-Allied conference in Paris

On 28 March 1916, at five in the afternoon, a conference of representatives of eight states fighting the Central Powers ended at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Quai d’Orsay (PL): France, Britain, Russia, Italy, Belgium, Serbia, Japan and Portugal. About thirty delegates, politicians, commanders and officials, had deliberated for two days under the chairmanship of the French Prime Minister, Aristide Briand. It was the first meeting of all the Allies at government level. Earlier meetings at Calais and Paris had brought together only the French and the British, and the conferences at Chantilly only the military. The British chronology of the war gives the dates 26–28 March, because the guests had already arrived on Sunday 26 March, and that evening Briand gave a dinner at the ministry for the Italian delegation. The deliberations took place on 27 and 28 March.

Who came

France was represented by Briand, the Minister of State Léon Bourgeois, the new Minister of War, General Roques, the Minister of Marine, Admiral Lacaze, the Under-Secretary of State for Munitions, Albert Thomas, the Secretary-General of the Foreign Ministry, Jules Cambon, and Generals Joseph Joffre and Noël de Castelnau. From London came the Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, the Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, the Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, the Minister of Munitions, David Lloyd George, and the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General William Robertson, with Maurice Hankey as secretary of the delegation. Italy sent the Prime Minister, Antonio Salandra, the Foreign Minister, Sidney Sonnino, and the commander-in-chief, General Luigi Cadorna, while at the table the Italian delegation was led by the ambassador in Paris, Tommaso Tittoni. Russia was represented by its ambassador, Alexander Izvolsky, Belgium by the Prime Minister, Charles de Broqueville, and the chief of staff, General Félix Wielemans, Serbia by the Prime Minister, Nikola Pašić, who had arrived in Paris a few days earlier with the Regent Alexander, and Japan by its ambassador, Keishirō Matsui.

The newest ally was Portugal, on which Germany had declared war on 9 March. The invitation to the conference came at the last moment. The Lisbon newspapers announced it on the evening of 26 March, and the government entrusted the country’s representation to its minister in Paris, João Chagas.

The deliberations

Briand opened the conference on 27 March at ten in the morning. The ministry’s communiqué said only that he had presented the programme of the deliberations, “which by its very nature must remain secret”. According to the Paris press, the morning was devoted to military matters: unity of action, the simultaneity of operations on the various fronts, cooperation between the armies, and munitions and armaments. In the afternoon the delegates dispersed into committees, which dealt with economic matters: finance, manpower, freight and coal. The British official history quotes the words with which Joffre is said to have set the tone for the whole meeting: “We must destroy the morale of the German army and the German nation.” After a long discussion of means, especially of munitions, the participants unanimously agreed on “common, methodical and concerted action”, in accordance with the slogan “one policy, one army, one front”.

The military deliberations were based on the conclusions adopted by the commanders at Chantilly on 12 March. Among them was the wish to tighten the blockade of Germany. According to the British historian of the blockade, Archibald Bell, at the last session Admiral Lacaze proposed setting up a permanent advisory committee on economic warfare for this purpose, and the proposal was adopted.

The resolutions

The conference unanimously adopted four resolutions, published on the evening of 28 March. In the first, the representatives of the governments affirmed “the complete community of views and the solidarity of the Allies” and confirmed all the measures aimed at “unity of action on a single front”. By this they meant unity of military action, ensured by agreement between the general staffs; unity of economic action, organised by the conference; and diplomatic unity, guaranteed by “the unshakeable will to carry on the struggle until the victory of the common cause”. The second resolution announced that the Allies would put their solidarity in the economic sphere into practice, and charged the economic conference, which was soon to meet in Paris, with preparing concrete measures. The third set up in Paris a permanent committee, with the participation of all the Allies, to strengthen, coordinate and unify action against the supply of the enemy. The fourth provided for the further organisation of the central international office for the chartering of ships begun in London, and for a joint search for ways of fairly distributing the costs of shipping and of halting the rise in freight rates.

In conclusion Briand thanked the delegates and declared that, should new matters requiring joint consultation arise, the Allied governments would no doubt consider it best to meet again. Tittoni replied on behalf of the guests.

Significance

The conference was a display of unity, but it produced few concrete decisions. The historian Elizabeth Greenhalgh writes that it was the first occasion on which the principles of an inter-allied council agreed in the winter were applied, but that the organisation itself achieved little. Bell considered the new blockade committee superfluous, because the British and the French were already conducting economic warfare according to a single plan. Even so, it was precisely the existence of this committee and the announcement of the economic conference that aroused suspicions in the United States that the Allies were preparing some great economic union directed also against the neutrals. The economic conference met in Paris in June 1916. In London the words about a common front turned into a military decision only on 7 April, when the government agreed that the British army should take part in a joint summer offensive with the French.