In January 1919, international delegates met in Paris to hammer out a peace accord. The conference produced several treaties, including the Treaty of Versailles, which laid out the terms of the postwar settlement with Germany. The peace negotiations inspired great expectations. A young British diplomat later wrote that the victors “were journeying to Paris . . . to found a new order in Europe. We were preparing not Peace only, but Eternal Peace.”4

This idealism was greatly strengthened by U.S. president Wilson’s January 1918 peace proposal, the Fourteen Points. The plan called for open diplomacy; a reduction in armaments; freedom of commerce and trade; and the establishment of a League of Nations, an international body designed to provide a place for peaceful resolution of international problems. Perhaps most important, Wilson demanded that peace be based on the principle of national self-determination, meaning that peoples should be able to choose their own national governments through democratic majority-rule elections. Despite the general optimism inspired by these ideas, the conference and the treaty itself quickly generated disagreement.

The “Big Three” — the United States, Great Britain, and France — controlled the conference. Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia were excluded. Italy took part, but its role was quite limited. Representatives from the Middle East, Africa, and East Asia attended as well, but their concerns were largely ignored.

Almost immediately, the Big Three began to quarrel. Wilson insisted that discussion of the League of Nations come first, for he passionately believed that only a permanent international organization could avert future wars. Wilson had his way — the delegates agreed to create the League, though the details would be worked out later and the final structure was too weak to achieve its grand purpose.

The question of what to do with Germany dominated discussions among the Big Three. Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau of France wanted revenge, economic retribution, and lasting security for his country. This, he believed, required the creation of a buffer state between France and Germany, the permanent demilitarization of Germany, and vast reparation payments. Lloyd George, Britain’s prime minister, supported Clemenceau but was less harsh. Wilson disagreed. By April, the conference was deadlocked, and Wilson packed his bags to go home.

In the end, Clemenceau agreed to a compromise. He gave up the French demand for a Rhineland buffer state in return for French military occupation of the region for fifteen years and a formal defensive alliance with the United States and Great Britain. The Allies moved quickly to finish the settlement, believing that further adjustments would be possible within the dual framework of a strong Western alliance and the League of Nations.

The various agreements signed at Versailles redrew the map of Europe. The new independent nations carved out of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires included Poland, Czechoslovakia, Finland, the Baltic States, and Yugoslavia. The Ottoman Empire was also split apart, its territories placed under the control of the victors.

The Treaty of Versailles, signed by the Allies and Germany, was key to the settlement. Germany’s African and Asian colonies were given to France, Britain, and Japan as League of Nations mandates or administered territories, though Germany’s losses within Europe were relatively minor, thanks to Wilson. Germany had to limit its army to one hundred thousand men, agree to build no military fortifications in the Rhineland, and accept temporary French occupation of that region.

More harshly, in Article 231, the famous war guilt clause, the Allies declared that Germany (with Austria) was entirely responsible for the war and thus had to pay reparations equal to all civilian damages caused by the fighting. When presented with these terms, the new German government protested vigorously but to no avail. On June 28, 1919, representatives of the German Social Democrats signed the treaty.

The rapidly concluded Versailles treaties were far from perfect, but within the context of war-shattered Europe they were a beginning. Germany had been punished but not dismembered. A new world organization complemented a defensive alliance of Britain, France, and the United States. The remaining serious problems, the Allies hoped, could be worked out in the future.

Yet the great hopes of early 1919 had turned to ashes by the end of the year. The Western alliance had collapsed, and a plan for permanent peace had given way to a fragile truce. There were several reasons for this turn of events. The U.S. Senate rejected American membership in the League of Nations and refused to ratify treaties forming a defensive alliance with France and Great Britain. Using U.S. actions as an excuse, Great Britain too refused to ratify its defensive alliance with France. Betrayed by its allies, France stood alone.

A second cause for the failure of the peace was that the principle of national self-determination was good in theory but flawed in practice. In Europe, the borders of new states cut through a jumble of ethnic and religious groups that often despised each other. The new central European nations would prove to be economically weak and politically unstable. In the colonies, desires for self-determination were simply ignored, leading to problems, particularly in the Middle East.