January 18:

1919 : Post-World War I peace conference begins in Paris

On this day in Paris, France, some of the most powerful people in the
world meet to begin the long, complicated negotiations that would
officially mark the end of the First World War.

Leaders of the victorious Allied powers--France, Great Britain, the
United States and Italy--would make most of the crucial decisions in
Paris over the next six months. For most of the conference, U.S.
President Woodrow Wilson struggled to support his idea of a "peace
without victory" and make sure that Germany, the leader of the Central
Powers and the major loser of the war, was not treated too harshly. On
the other hand, Prime Ministers Georges Clemenceau of France and David
Lloyd George of Britain argued that punishing Germany adequately and
ensuring its weakness was the only way to justify the immense costs of
the war. In the end, Wilson compromised on the treatment of Germany in
order to push through the creation of his pet project, an
international peacekeeping organization called the League of Nations.

Representatives from Germany were excluded from the peace conference
until May, when they arrived in Paris and were presented with a draft
of the Versailles Treaty. Having put great faith in Wilson's promises,
the Germans were deeply frustrated and disillusioned by the treaty,
which required them to forfeit a great deal of territory and pay
reparations. Even worse, the infamous Article 231 forced Germany to
accept sole blame for the war. This was a bitter pill many Germans
could not swallow.

The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, five years to
the day after a Serbian nationalist's bullet ended the life of
Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and sparked the beginning of World
War I. In the decades to come, anger and resentment of the treaty and
its authors festered in Germany. Extremists like Adolf Hitler's
National Socialist (Nazi) Party capitalized on these emotions to gain
power, a process that led almost directly to the exact thing Wilson
and the other negotiators in Paris in 1919 had wanted to prevent--a
second, equally devastating global war.

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General Interest
1919 : Post-World War I peace conference begins in Paris
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