The Treaty of Versailles, by Trevor Balboni, updated 5/10/98
Related historical timeline created with Timeliner (Nobles grad, Tom Snyder)
The Treaty of Versailles was created after WWI. The Germans, who lost the war along with the former Ottoman Empire, were forced to accept terms of peace that could have possibly destroyed the country. The British and French were intent upon forcing the Germans to pay what it had cost them to wage war, citing that, had Germany never begun the aggression, then their would have been no war and thus no need to pay for a war. The German colonies were split up among the victors, and they were told that their armed forces could not exceed 100,000 men. President Woodward Wilson of the United States wrote before the actual conference, a peace plan called The Fourteen Points. Many will argue that, had they been accepted as the basis of the treaty, then the course of history would have changed and more specifically that WWII could have been avoided. One of the points, the one Wilson fought hardest and sacrificed other points for, was point fourteen. It called for the establishment of an all-world organization, dedicated to upholding peace. The League of Nations, as it was called, was established, but for political reasons was not ratified by the U.S., the country that had been so vigilant in insisting that it be created. This left it up to the countries which had opposed the league, Britian and France, to enforce its covenants. Many say that had the Fourteen Points been accepted as the basis for the treaty, World War II could have been avoided.
