Treaty of Versailles: Consequences of the Great War

The Peace Agreement

• In January 1919, delegations from twenty-seven victorious Allied nations met in Paris to conclude the final agreement of the Great War.
• U.S. President Woodrow Wilson wanted a truly just and lasting peace, arms reduction, and national self-determination for peoples.
• National interests of the victors complicated the deliberations of the Conference of Paris in Versailles.
• David Lloyd George, Prime Minister of Great Britain, had won his election by promising the people heavy penalties for Germany if it lost the war. Therefore, the English people wanted total victory over Germany.
• Georges Clemenceau had vowed revenge against Germany and wanted a demilitarized Germany, enormous damage repairs, and a separate state in the Rhine country to serve as a buffer between France and Germany. Wilson regarded these demands as vindictive and not at all commensurate with his proposal for "eternal peace."
• Although 27 nations were present at Versailles, the three who made the decisions were Wilson (USA), Clemenceau (France), and Lloyd George (UK).
• Wilson wanted to create the League of Nations, with arrangements that would ensure eternal peace.
• The vested interests of the English and French only led to signing a commitment to reach a peace agreement. In January 1919, the principle of the League of Nations was signed and adopted.
• Clemenceau renounced the desire for an independent state on the Rhine but agreed to a defensive alliance with England and the USA to help France in case of a German attack.
• The final peace agreement in Paris consisted of 5 separate treaties with each of the defeated nations: Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire. It was signed at Versailles on 28 June 1919.
• Germany had to reduce its army to 100,000 men and lost territories: Alsace-Lorraine and parts of Prussia.
• New states emerged in Eastern Europe.
• Both the German and the Russian Empires suffered substantial territorial losses in Eastern Europe. The Austro-Hungarian Empire disappeared completely.
• As a result of commitments, virtually every state in Eastern Europe was left with ethnic problems that could cause further conflicts.
• For peace enforcement to succeed, it needed an active engagement of the three winners, for Germany to develop a pacifist and democratic republic.
• However, the U.S. Senate rejected ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, meaning that America never became a member of the League of Nations.
• This withdrawal had dire consequences. The withdrawal of Americans from a defensive alliance with France and Britain also caused the withdrawal of England.
• The U.S. and France, forced to face its only secular enemy, exacerbated the situation by encouraging vigorous actions against Germany, which only intensified German resentment.
• By the end of 1919, it seemed that the peace of 1919 began to fray.