Conventions

Thoughts about my Paris Peace Conference and the Versailles Treaty paper. ?

World War I was supposedly “the war to end all wars”. Its scale of destruction was said to have eclipsed all previous wars. An estimated 65 million soldiers fought in World War I – the central powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey) and the allied powers (Britain and its colonies, France, Belgium, Russia, Italy and the United States) combined. At the end of the war, about 10 million were killed and another 20 million were injured.
Germany was held responsible for instigating World War I – it urged Austria to invade Serbia in retaliation for the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian nationalist. Thus, every World War I treaty and armistice was intended to severely penalize Germany, as well as to prevent it from threatening the world again. Germany, in turn, plunged into social, economic and political chaos. Two examples of the aforementioned settlements were the Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles.
The Paris Peace Conference was held in Versailles, France from January 12 to January 20, 1919. The sole objective of the convention was to come up with provisions that would help establish peace after World War I. Although nearly 30 countries attended the Paris Peace Conference, the representatives of Great Britain (Lloyd George), France (Georges Clemenceau), Italy (Vittorio Emanuele Orlando) and the US (Woodrow Wilson) – collectively known as the “Big Four” – dominated the event’s proceedings. The “Big Four” spearheaded the formulation of the Treaty of Versailles, a truce which “articulated the compromises reached at the conference”.
One of the most important terms in the Treaty of Versailles is the plan to establish the League of Nations, an international collective security organization and forum that would also serve as the precursor of the United Nations. Wilson, for one, viewed the League as a means of averting future wars. The Treaty of Versailles included several other provisions, such as the penalties that were to be imposed on Germany. In the end, the treaty ruled that Germany was to pay war damages amounting to 132 billion gold marks. It also had to give up its colonies, overseas assets, as well as its military.
Below are the more specific examples of provisions in the Treaty of Versailles that penalized Germany:
1.The surrender of all German colonies as League of Nations mandates
2.The return of Alsace-Lorraine to France
3.Cession of Eupen-Malmedy to Belgium, Memel to Lithuania, the Hultschin district to Czechoslovakia, Poznania, parts of East Prussia and Upper Silesia to Poland
4.Danzig to become a free city
5.Plebiscites to be held in northern Schleswig to settle the Danish-German frontier
6.Occupation and special status for the Saar under French control
7.Demilitarization and a 15-year occupation of the Rhineland
8.German reparations of £6,600 million
9.A ban on the union of Germany and Austria
10.An acceptance of Germany’s guilt in causing the war
11.Provision for the trial of the former Kaiser and other war leaders
12.Limitation of Germany’s army to 10,000 men with no conscription, no tanks, no heavy artillery, no poison-gas supplies, no aircraft and no airships
13.The limitation of the German Navy to vessels under 10,000 tons, with no submarines
But the weakness of the Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles is that they overestimated liberalism’s capacity to create a just world order. In the context of these two agreements, liberalism was simply used to cover the vengeful and wrong actions of the war’s victors. It is true that the Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles imposed heavy sanctions on Germany for its defeat in World War I. However, there was no trial of Kaiser or the other war leaders. Thus, the conclusion that the Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Paris was carried out merely to divide Germany among those who defeated it. Furthermore, another weakness of the Versailles Treaty was that it depended on Germany’s cooperation for it to work. If Germany didn’t want to abide by it, who was going to stop them? Nobody wanted to go to war again to enforce the treaty. This is evident through history.
As for the war’s losers, this distorted form of liberalism allowed them to elect dictatorships that violated civil rights and liberties. The economic and political devastation that the Germans experienced due to the Treaty of Versailles left them desperate for a leader that will restore their country to its former glory. Adolf Hitler, as a result, became the dictator of Germany by capitalizing on the German people’s resentment over the consequences of their loss in World War I. While in power, he was responsible for the Holocaust, which killed 6 million Jews in World War II.
However, which state was really the most responsible for starting World War I? Though it was made very clear that no one county or event can be blamed for the war, the answer would have to be Germany. It was the sta

good work, maybe u can add a details .. like.

Versailles Treaty and Treaty of Sèvres .. bad deals always ignite new conflicts. Do not push the loosing side to hard.