In 1919, delegates of the newly founded independent states which had emerged from the dissolution of the former British Empire issued the Versailles Declaration on this day. These free nations committed themselves to an exhilirating multi-racial future based upon the principle that "We believe in equal rights for all citizens regardless of race. We recognise racial prejudice as a dangerous sickness and racial discrimination as an unmitigated evil of society" Two years before, military exigencies had forced British Prime Minister David Lloyd-George to bring the White Dominions into an imperial government, after Canadians demanded that "if you want our aid, call us to your councils".

A Communist Britain, Part Two - The Peace AccordThe invitation had been issued to India too; whilst not a self-governing Dominion, the subcontinent committed over a million men to the Imperial British Army, suffering over 80,000 deaths.

"We believe in equal rights for all citizens regardless of raceYet the war had ended in catastrophe for the British Homeland, with chronic food shortages and an intolerable casualty counts fuelling a Communist overthrow of Lloyd-George's Government in London.

And so the peace delegation at Versailles would be composed of free men, sitting at the top table as equals with their British comrades. And yet none would have foreseen that their declaration of principles would meet the severest of tests - the re-emergence of Germay with a programme of ethnic cleansing that would shake the Versailles Declaration to its very core.