At the junction of Central Europe's three old empires lay one of the richest mineral and industrial areas of the continent. A territory of some 4,000 square miles, Upper Silesia was ruled by Austria and Prussia throughout modern history. The northern sections and the area west of the Oder River were exclusively agricultural, and inhabited largely by Germans. In the extreme southeastern corner of Upper Silesia, Polish peasants tilled the estates of German magnates. Lying between the German and the Polish agricultural areas was a small triangular area of mixed population containing a wealth of mines and factories. That Upper Silesian "industrial triangle" was second only to the Ruhr basin in Imperial Germany; in 1913 Upper Silesian coalfields accounted for 21 percent of German coal production. At the close of the First World War Upper Silesia lay in the midst of dissolving empires; it contained a mixed German and Polish population, and it included a vital economic area of Central Europe. Both Germany and Poland laid claim to the area, but Upper Silesia could not remain a matter of purely local concern in 1919. The fate of Upper Silesia became a subject of intense debate at the Paris Peace Conference.1 The original draft of the Treaty of Versailles stipulated that the entire area would become part of the new Polish state. As a result of the protests in the German reply to the draft treaty, Lloyd George took up the issue and fought vehemently for a plebiscite. Warning against the danger of creating a "new Alsace-Lorraine" and emphasizing the doubtful national loyalties of the area, he overrode the opposition of Clemenceau and the indecision of Wilson, and succeeded in placing the provision for a plebiscite in Upper Silesia in the Treaty of Versailles. That decision was one of few important concessions granted to the Germans at the peace conference, and it resulted purely from the initiative of Lloyd George. Already at Paris the lines of the unfolding struggle for Upper Silesia were drawn, with British policy