Saint-Germain, Treaty of

Saint-Germain, Treaty of săN-zhĕrmăNˈ [key], any of several treaties signed at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris, France. 1 The Treaty of Saint-Germain of 1570 terminated the first phase of the French religious wars (see Religion, Wars of). 2 The Treaty of Saint-Germain of 1679 made peace between France and the elector of Brandenburg at the end of the third of the Dutch Wars. Frederick William the Great Elector had to restore nearly all his conquests in Pomerania to Charles XI of Sweden, who was allied to France. 3 The Treaty of Saint-Germain of Sept. 10, 1919, was signed by the victorious Allies of World War I on the one hand and by the new republic of Austria on the other. Like the Treaty of Versailles with Germany, it contained the Covenant of the League of Nations and as a result was not ratified by the United States. The treaty declared the Austro-Hungarian monarchy dissolved. The new republic of Austria, consisting of most of the German-speaking part of the former Austrian Empire, recognized the independence of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Yugoslavia (then called the kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes). Austria was reduced not only by the loss of crownlands incorporated into Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Yugoslavia (the “successor states”) but by the cession of S Tyrol, Trieste, Istria, several Dalmatian islands, and Friuli to Italy and the cession of Bukovina to Romania. Burgenland, then a part of Hungary, was awarded to Austria. Austria assumed the responsibility of the imperial Austrian government for its share in bringing about the war, but its reparations payments to the Allies actually were never exacted because of the obvious insolvency of the Austrian state. An important article of the treaty required Austria to refrain from directly or indirectly compromising its independence, which meant that Austria could not enter into political or economic union (see Anschluss) with Germany without the agreement of the council of the League of Nations. The Austrian army was limited to a force of 30,000 volunteers. There were numerous provisions dealing with Danubian navigation, the transfer of railroads, and other details involved in the breakup of a great empire into several small independent states. The Treaty of Trianon in 1920 between Hungary and the Allies completed the disposition of the former Dual Monarchy.

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