Peace Settlements

Victorious Allied nations met in Paris to make a final settlement of the war.

 The U.S. president, Woodrow Wilson, had presented his “Fourteen Points” to the U.S. Congress. These points were his basis for a peace settlement. His proposals included:

• Reaching the peace agreements openly rather than through secret diplomacy
• Reducing armaments (military forces)
•  Ensuring self-determination (the right of each people to have its own nation) The Prime Minister of Great Britain was determined to make Germany pay for the war.

The Premiere of France wanted Germany to be stripped of all weapons. He also wanted German reparations (payments to cover the costs of the war).

 On January 25, 1919, the conference accepted Wilson’s idea of a League of Nations.

 The final peace settlement consisted of five separate treaties with the defeated nations (Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey). The most important treaty was the Treaty of Versailles with Germany who was declared the sole country responsible for the outbreak of the war. Germany was forced to pay out large amounts of money in compensation, to disarm and dismantle its army, to cede huge areas of territory and to renounce its colonial empire. For the Germans, this was a total humiliation (diktat), which only increased their sense of nationalism and desire for future revenge..

As a result of the war and the peace treaties, the map of Europe was redrawn. Both the German and Russian empires lost much territory. The Austro-Hungarian Empire disappeared. New nations emerged: Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Hungary. Romania acquired additional lands from Russia, Hungary, and Bulgaria. Serbia became part of a new nation, called Yugoslavia. The Ottoman Empire was also broken up by the peace settlement.

FluteFlute Map of territorial changes in Europe after World War I CC BY 2.0