In attendance: Count Vladimir Nikolayevich Lamsdorf, Foreign Minister to His Majesty, Emperor Nicholas II
Secretary of State John M. Hay will be attending to represent the United States of America.
Ministre des Affaires étrangères : Théophile Delcassé (Foreign Office) represent of France.
Bernhard von Bülow, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs for the German Empire
OOC: Somebody's there for the Ottomans. I'll edit a name in later.
Itō Hirobumi (伊藤 博文), Minister of Foreign Affairs will represent Japan.
Count Lamsdorf is touring the Huis ten Bosch Palace in the Hague with an aid.
"It was quite agreeable of the King to allow the use of his palace for this occasion sir!", the aid observed.
"Yes, His Majesty the Emporer has some influence over the House of Orange." The Count smiled before adding, "The French foreign minister has quite a bit more I suspect."
The aid showed the Count to the Orange Hall:
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Oranjezaal_na_de_restauratie-_overzicht_noordoosthoek%2C_met_de_hele_oostwand_-_%27s-Gravenhage_-_20416714_-_RCE.jpg)
"Yes, this will do nicely. Ask the Dutch to set up a large U-shaped table in the center, and provide plenty of chairs. I expect the delegates will bring lots of aids."
"Quite so sir! Did you see the Army the Prussians brought?"
The Count smiled again. "I'm not sure Germans can travel anywhere without an Army. Certainly their Kaiser seems to enjoy a full escort."
Hook of Holland, The Netherlands [Date to be added, do you have one in mind for the start of things Guinness?]
John Hay took a step of the gangplank of the USS Lexington. There had been some delays in getting the necessary arrangements made, so taking the big Frigate as his transport had been unavoidable. Besides, he thought to himself, there are some good-will port calls to be made[1]. Why not show off a little bit. He spotted the delegation that was there to receive him quickly. Walking over to join them he motioned for his translators to follow. So it begins.
[1] Just let me know if you want to have the Lexy visit.
I had in mind the end of July, if that's reasonable.
Great Britain is sending Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (i.e. Lord Salisbury)
Quote from: Darman on August 15, 2014, 04:25:56 PM
Great Britain is sending Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (i.e. Lord Salisbury)
Overheard: "We can just call him Lord Salisbury." "Good, that's a bit easier to spell."
QuoteOverheard: "We can just call him Lord Salisbury." "Good, that's a bit easier to spell."
Probably be even easier to use 'Bob'. ;D
China's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Baron Jie Ziqi, will represent China. He will be assisted by Tan Hua who will translate stuff from Dutch or English to Chinese (Mandarin to be more precise) and vice versa. Temujin, Emperor of China, and Jamuk Ha, General of the Armies of China, will be there as well to observe the meeting (and perhaps give the Baron some suggestions and/or ideas if necessary).
(note: online translator gave me 'Jie Zi Qi' = 'mustard gas' and 'Tan Hua' = 'talk, conversation', so you got Baron Mustard Gas and translator Talk)
The Italian Foreign Minister, Emilio, marquis Visconti-Venosta, accompanied by the Count of Turin, Prince Vittorio Emanuele of Savoy-Aosta. The Marquis, retained by the new administration, has served intermittently as the Italian minister for Foreign Affairs since 1863, an unparalleled 37 year career. The Count, 2nd in line to the Italian throne, Infante of Spain, Colonello of the Cavalry, famed winner of a duel against Henri of Orleans. The Count has recently completed his world tour, visiting Europe, America, Japan, China and the Orient.
I'm thinking maybe we should just discuss/adopt these out-of-character. The discussion isn't going anywhere.
OOC: Sorry, everyone maybe was waiting on me to kick it off.
Count Lamsdorf rises and says a few words to open the proceedings. He speaks Russian, and nobody bothers to translate. It's just the usual "thanks for coming" boiler plate.
He then puts forth his proposals: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hague_Conventions_of_1899_and_1907#Hague_Convention_of_1899
John Hay rises to speak.
"The United States of America has no major issues with Proposals One through Three. With regards to Proposals four and its sub-sections, we would like to see more discussion on such before possibly supporting them."
[OOC, I based this off what the US historically accepted.]
Quote from: Guinness on August 27, 2014, 12:56:26 PM
OOC: Sorry, everyone maybe was waiting on me to kick it off.
was kinda looking for that transition point between "we're coming" and "lets talk"
It is the concern of some of my peers that the Kingdom of Italy not enter any agreements underwhich she is bound, but others may not be.
As such, we would like to stipulate that matters under this treaty are only binding if all involved parties are signatories.
In regards to the proposed Articles.
Article 1, the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Our Kingdom is opposed at this time. We feel enshrining a panel of judges for this purpose could lead to influence peddling, and we prefer the current system of seeking a mutually agreed on third party.
Article 2. We are in broad agreement with this proposal, and it reflects honorably on it's Russian sponsor and our host.
We would like to see the wording regarding poisons be rendered broader in scope. Ancient history is replete with deliberate use of diseased carcasses, poisoning of wells, use of flaming naphtha, salting of the earth and other such barbarous means of waging war, robbing warfare of it's glory and reducing it to a vicious brawl. Reliance on these methods ruins both sides in the conflict, with little effect on the balance of power.
We would seek wording to ban deliberate use of poisons or infectious material in warfare, on air, land or water by whatever means. Further, a ban on use of incendiary material against human targets, though use against objects such as a ship may still occur.
Article III is regarding maritime warfare. We would like it codified that a noncombatant vessel must be hailed, or be subject to warning shots, such that they have adequate time to surrender to overwhelming force, prior to being attacked in a manner which may lead to that vessels loss. Further, We would consider a Permanent International Prize court to allow captured merchants to be taken to any neutral port and valued by said court.
Regarding Article 4, item 3, we would like to see this provision expanded such that no projectile under, say 21mm in diameter, may be designed to expand, flatten, explode, burn, poison, or otherwise cause unusually harmful wounds. That should eliminate such scientific deviltry from hand held fire arms and restore honor to the art of arms, allowing soldiers to kill each other as god intended, with simple bullets.
(I will presume we're just dealing with the 1899 proposals? Or was the inclusion of the 1907 deliberate?)
OOC: The intention was 1899 only, but if any nation wants to bring up provisions from the 1907 convention, I see no problem with that.
OOC: Let's stick with 1899. That lets us look forward to more debate in 1907.
IC:
"The Ottoman Empire can agree to Treaty Two and Treaty Three, and the three declarations. We have certain reservations.
As to the first treaty, The Ottoman delegation, considering that the work of this Conference has been a work of high loyalty and humanity, destined solely to assure general peace by safeguarding the interests and the rights of each one, declares, in the name of its Government, that it adheres to the project just adopted, on the following conditions:
It is formally understood that recourse to good offices and mediation, to commissions of inquiry and arbitration is purely facultative and could not in any case assume an obligatory character or degenerate into intervention; The Imperial Government itself will be the judge of the cases where its interests would permit it to admit these methods without its abstention or refusal to have recourse to them being considered by the signatory States as an unfriendly act.
It goes without saying that in no case could the means in question be applied to questions concerning interior regulation."
OOC: This is the historical Ottoman response, copy/pasted from the text.
"The representatives of her Britannic Majesty Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdoms of Britain and Ireland, Empress of India, agree that all the peoples of the world desire peace, and it is the noble goal of this Convention to agree upon some mutually satisfactory process by which peace may be attained, without infringing upon the rights and obligations that nations have towards their own peoples. It is our government's position that encouraging the use of mediation to resolve diplomatic disputes between nations is a worthy object of aspiration of this Convention. We do concur with the delegation from the Ottoman Empire in pointing out the futility of attempting to compel mediation, or the results of mediation forcibly upon any nation, and would declare ourselves unwilling to sign any declaration that exacts from us a portion of our own sovereignty, or opens any nation to intervention by a foreign power or powers to compel mediation upon them"
OOC Note: Events in Austria-Hungary probably inform conversation here. So let's pause until events in that crisis catch up to July 1900.
The German Diplomatic Team is withdrawn and heads off to Istanbul while the German Ambassador takes over for these talks.
Karl Max Fürst von Lichnowsky
Did we want to continue this or just say that things we accepted as historical?
Quote from: snip on November 20, 2014, 09:26:52 AM
Did we want to continue this or just say that things we accepted as historical?
I think this might be best.
Quote from: Darman on November 20, 2014, 01:02:55 PM
Quote from: snip on November 20, 2014, 09:26:52 AM
Did we want to continue this or just say that things we accepted as historical?
I think this might be best.
The historical Ottoman response suits me so this would be fine with me.
France sign & accepted as historical.
I'm fine with the UK's response
IC
The Imperial German Government agrees to articles I, II and III but as there is not universal agreement on article IV and its subsections Germany must at this time refuse to be bound by article IV. The Imperial German Government is willing to state that it in the event of conflict it will keep to the terms of article IV as long as as the other parties do. Also that if the nations that have refused to ratify Article IV do so then Germany will at that time ratify article IV.
Since we have not had any discussion on matters,
Italy's stance is the same as when we left off.
Basically - rejecting Article I, broad agreement with II,III, and IV - though with some tinkering to expand each, and an overall clause that the treaty only applies when both parties are members.
Quote from: Kaiser Kirk on August 27, 2014, 10:25:27 PM
It is the concern of some of my peers that the Kingdom of Italy not enter any agreements underwhich she is bound, but others may not be.
As such, we would like to stipulate that matters under this treaty are only binding if all involved parties are signatories.
In regards to the proposed Articles.
Article 1, the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Our Kingdom is opposed at this time. We feel enshrining a panel of judges for this purpose could lead to influence peddling, and we prefer the current system of seeking a mutually agreed on third party.
Article 2. We are in broad agreement with this proposal, and it reflects honorably on it's Russian sponsor and our host.
We would like to see the wording regarding poisons be rendered broader in scope. Ancient history is replete with deliberate use of diseased carcasses, poisoning of wells, use of flaming naphtha, salting of the earth and other such barbarous means of waging war, robbing warfare of it's glory and reducing it to a vicious brawl. Reliance on these methods ruins both sides in the conflict, with little effect on the balance of power.
We would seek wording to ban deliberate use of poisons or infectious material in warfare, on air, land or water by whatever means. Further, a ban on use of incendiary material against human targets, though use against objects such as a ship may still occur.
Article III is regarding maritime warfare. We would like it codified that a noncombatant vessel must be hailed, or be subject to warning shots, such that they have adequate time to surrender to overwhelming force, prior to being attacked in a manner which may lead to that vessels loss. Further, We would consider a Permanent International Prize court to allow captured merchants to be taken to any neutral port and valued by said court.
Regarding Article 4, item 3, we would like to see this provision expanded such that no projectile under, say 21mm in diameter, may be designed to expand, flatten, explode, burn, poison, or otherwise cause unusually harmful wounds. That should eliminate such scientific deviltry from hand held fire arms and restore honor to the art of arms, allowing soldiers to kill each other as god intended, with simple bullets.
(I will presume we're just dealing with the 1899 proposals? Or was the inclusion of the 1907 deliberate?)