1919

The year in brief

In 1919 the victors set about ordering the post-war world. On 18 January the peace conference opened in Paris; the defeated powers and Russia had no seat at the table. On 28 June, in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, Germany signed a treaty that took away its lands, its colonies and almost its entire army. Austria signed its peace in September, Bulgaria in November. In Moscow the Third International was founded to build a world republic of soviets, in Berlin the Freikorps crushed the Spartacist uprising, and the Hungarian Soviet Republic fell in August as the Romanians advanced on Budapest. On 14 February, near Mosty on the Neman and at Bereza Kartuska, Polish detachments clashed with the Red Army; many historians regard that day as the beginning of the Polish–Soviet War. That year the Poles took Wilno and Minsk. In September, in Munich, Adolf Hitler attended a meeting of the small DAP and soon joined it.