Page:Treaty of Peace - Versailles (1919) Ottawa.djvu/167

RV 167 (SESSIONAL PAPER No. 41)

Germany undertakes to recognize the full force of the Treaties of Peace and Additional Conventions which may be concluded by the Allied and Associated Powers with the Powers who fought on the side of Germany and to recognize whatever dispositions may be made concerning the territories of the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, of the Kingdom of Bulgaria and of the Ottoman Empire, and to recognize the new States within their frontiers as there laid down.

The High Contracting Parties, while they recognize the guarantees stipulated by the Treaties of 1815, and especially by the Act of November 20, 1815, in favour of Switzerland, the said guarantees constituting international obligations for the maintenance of peace, declare nevertheless that the provisions of these treaties, conventions, declarations and other supplementary Acts concerning the neutralized zone of Savoy, as laid down in paragraph 1 of Article 92 of the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna and in paragraph 2 of Article 3 of the Treaty of Paris of November 20, 1815, are no longer consistent with present conditions. For this reason the High Contracting Parties take note of the agreement reached between the French Government and the Swiss Government for the abrogation of the stipulations relating to this zone which are and remain abrogated.

The High Contracting Parties also agree that the stipulations of the Treaties of 1815 and of the other supplementary Acts concerning the free zones of Upper Savoy and the Gex districts are no longer consistent with present conditions, and that it is for France and Switzerland to come to an agreement together with a view to settling between themselves the status of these territories under such conditions as shall be considered suitable by both countries.

The Swiss Federal Council has informed the French Government May 5, 1919, that after examining the provisions of Article 435 in a like spirit of sincere friendship it has happily reached the conclusion that it was possible to acquiesce in it under the following conditions and reservations:—

(1) The neutralized zone of Haute-Savoie:—

(a) It will be understood that as long as the Federal Chambers have not ratified the agreement come to between the two Governments concerning the abrogation of the stipulations in respect of the neutralized zone of Savoy, nothing will be definitely settled, on one side or the other, in regard to this subject.