Name/Title
StereographEntry/Object ID
2023.055.3.0175Description
A black and white stereograph. Image is of the interior of a building, several small desks and chairs are laid out in the center and edges of the room, there are high windows and a statue alonside one wall. Above the image "W280 (Star)" is printed, below the image "18780 Galerie Des Glaces, Showing Table where Peace Treaty Was Signed, Versailles, France." is printed, to the left of the image "Keystone View Company COPYRIGHTED Manufacturers MADE IN U.S.A. Publishers" is printed, to the right of the image "Meadville, Pa., New York, N. Y., Chicago, Ill., London, England." is printed. On the reverse the following is printed:
18780
GALERIE DES GLACES, VERSAILLES
We are looking at the magnificent chamber in which the Peace Treaty was signed. At the ornamental table in the foreground, with its bronze and gilt decorations, the German delegates in silence and in bitterness of spirit affixed their names to the fateful document. Forty-eight years before, German officials had required France to sign, in this same chamber, a treaty far more humiliating and far more drastic in its terms.
June 28, 1919, was a momentous day in the history of the world. At two o'clock on that Saturday afternoon an endless chain of motor cars bearing distinguished delegates from Allied Nations, rolled through lines of French soldiers to a grand entrance of the Palace of Versailles. Their occupants passed up the marble stairway, through the "Queen's Apartments" to the Galerie des Glaces (Hall of Mirrors), while a dozen airplances wheeled and circled above, and innumerable thousands of men and women packed the spacious parks and gardens. Double lines of infantry, with fixed bayonets, guarded the entrance to the palace.
The Allied delegates were seated at the large U-shaped table which we see to the right of the vast chamber, from whose walls gleam more than 300 mirrors of finest plate glass. At 3:15 p. m. the first signatures were affixed to the treaty, those of the German delegates, who were then escorted to their seats. President Wilson then signed, followed bythe Allied delegates in alphabetical order and the ceremony was over.
Copyright by The Keystone View CompanyCollection
Photograph Collection