had created. For a century after the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, the town was in Congress Poland, a part of the Russian Empire. During World War I, the region was captured by the German Empire, which intended to incorporate the area into its province of East Prussia. After the German defeat, the victorious Entente was willing to assign the territory to either the newly independent Poland or Lithuania. The future of the region was discussed at the Paris Peace Conference in January 1919. The Germans, whose former Ober-Ost administration was preparing to evacuate, initially supported leaving the area to a Polish administration. However, as Poland was becoming an ally of France, German support gradually shifted towards Lithuania. In July 1919, when the German troops began their slow retreat from the area, they delegated the administration to local Lithuanian authorities. Lithuanian officers and troops, who first arrived in the region in May, began to organize military units in the pre-war Sejny county. According to Russian statistics from 1889, there were 57.8% Lithuanians, 19.1% Poles, and 3.5% Belarusians in the Suwałki Governorate. It is generally agreed that Lithuanians formed the majority of the population in the northern Suwałki Governorate, while Poles were concentrated in the south. But Lithuanian and Polish historians and political scientists continued to disagree over the location of the line that separated the areas of Lithuanian and Polish majorities. Lithuanians claimed that Sejny and the surrounding area were inhabited primarily by the Lithuanians, while the Poles claimed exactly the opposite. The German census of 1916 showed that 51% of Sejny population was Lithuanian. Demarcation lines In the aftermath of World War I, the Conference of Ambassadors drew the first demarcation line between Poland and Lithuania on June 18, 1919. The line satisfied no one, and Polish troops continued to advance deeper into the Lithuanian-controlled territory. These attacks coincided with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, which eliminated any danger from Germany. Attempting to halt further hostilities, Marshal of France Ferdinand Foch proposed a new line, known as the Foch Line, on July 18, 1919. The Foch Line was negotiated with the Polish war mission, led by General Tadeusz Jordan-Rozwadowski in Paris, while Lithuanian representatives were not invited. The Foch Line had two major modifications compared to the June 18 line: first, the entire line was moved west to give extra protection to the strategic