{\b Paris Peace Treaty}.

Over the years a great number of peace treaties have been signed at Paris and 
come to be known as The Paris Peace Treaty. These include, in chronological 
order; the treaty of 1763, ending the Seven Years War; the 1783 treaty marking 
American Independence; the treaties of 1814 and 1815, signed respectively 
after the abdication and the defeat of Napolean; the treaty of 1856 marking 
the end of the Crimean War; the 1898 treaty ending the Spanish-American War; 
the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 to 1920, following the cessation of 
hostilities in World War One; the numerous treaties signed, by the allies, 
after the next world war, with Italy, Hungary, Rumania, Finland and Bulgaria; 
and, in 1973, the treaty that verified the cessation of American hostilities 
in Vietnam.

Of these, it was the conference of 1919-20 that led famously to the setting 
up, on 16 January 1920, of the League of Nations. Effectively this 
inauguration came at the end of the conference, but several other treaties had 
been signed in the meantime. 

The conference opened, after a short delay caused by the then British Prime 
Minister David Lloyd George, in January 1919. At a preliminary meeting a 
Council of Ten was set up. This was made up of the government heads and 
foreign ministers of France, Britain, the United States, Japan and Italy. 
However, three months later, the Japanese head of state, Prince Kimmocho, 
withdrew and, though the foreign ministers remained five in total, the 
governmental heads were thus reduced to four. 

In February of the same year the Supreme Economic Council was set up to deal 
with the difficult, post-peace, economic problems. A number of important 
treaties followed: the Treaty of Versailles, signed with the Germans, on 28 
June; the Treaty of Saint-Germain, signed with the Austrians, on 10 September; 
and the Treaty of Neuilly, signed with the Bulgarians, on 27 November. After 
the inauguration of the League of Nations, treaties were signed with both 
Turkey and Hungary in 1920, with a second treaty with Turkey following in 1923.