World War I: Treaty Of Versailles

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Date: February 23, 2011 World War I 2 After the Paris Peace Conference of January 1919, a final peace agreement, The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919 at the château of Versailles near Paris thus the name, between the Allied and Central Powers to end World War I, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The main signatories of the treaty were “the president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, the Prime Minister of Britain, David Lloyd George, the prime minister of France, Georges Clemenceau, and the prime minister of Italy, Vittorio Orlando” (Berry, Berg, & Krukones, 2011.) The defeated countries, Germany and Austria-Hungary were not included in the negotiations. Russia was also excluded because “it had negotiated a peace treaty with Germany in 1917, in which Germany gained a large fraction of Russia's land and resources” (Evans, 2005-09.) This paper will compare and contrast the idealistic view of Woodrow Wilson and the demands for security and revenge of Georges Clemenceau. The main leaders, known as the ‘Big Four’ met to end ‘The Great War’ and to decide the fate of Germany, holding her responsible for starting the war including its enormous devastation. Terms imposed by the treaty on Germany included heavy monetary reparations, “partitioning a certain amount of its own territory to a number of surrounding countries, being stripped of all of its overseas colonies, particularly those in Africa, and limiting its ability to make war again, by restrictions on the size of its military. Some of the articles of the Treaty were consider being very harsh, ultimately creating a political and economic turmoil in Germany” (Evans, 2005-09.) Woodrow Wilson, America’s 28th president was a peace-keeping president who believed that a more moderate approach was needed to be imposed on Germany after her defeat World War I

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