ChronoFive
Play today’s puzzle
Setting the scene
The Paris Peace Conference opened on January 18, 1919, in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, exactly 48 years after Germany had proclaimed its empire there in 1871. Thirty-two nations attended, but the 'Big Four' dominated: Woodrow Wilson of the US, David Lloyd George of Britain, Georges Clemenceau of France, and Vittorio Orlando of Italy. Wilson brought his Fourteen Points, calling for self-determination and a League of Nations. Clemenceau, whose country had lost 1.4 million dead, wanted to cripple Germany permanently. Lloyd George sought a middle ground that wouldn't destroy German trade.
What happened
The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, five years to the day after Archduke Franz Ferdinand's assassination. Germany lost 13% of its territory and 10% of its population—Alsace-Lorraine to France, West Prussia to Poland (creating the Polish Corridor), and all colonies. The German army was limited to 100,000 men, no tanks, no air force, and no submarines. Article 231, the 'war guilt clause,' forced Germany to accept sole responsibility for the war. Reparations were set at 132 billion gold marks ($33 billion), a sum designed to be unpayable. Germany was not invited to negotiate; the treaty was presented as a fait accompli.
Why it still matters
Versailles created a Carthaginian peace that humiliated Germany and wrecked its economy, leading to hyperinflation in 1923 when Germany defaulted. The treaty's harshness became a rallying cry for Adolf Hitler, who promised to tear it up. The US Senate rejected the treaty, refusing to join the League of Nations and weakening the new international order. The treaty redrew Eastern Europe, creating new nations like Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, but left ethnic Germans stranded in other countries, providing Hitler pretexts for expansion. John Maynard Keynes, a British delegate, resigned in protest and wrote 'The Economic Consequences of the Peace,' predicting the treaty would cause another war. He was right—Versailles is now seen as a textbook example of how punitive peace sows future conflict.
Background
It also created the League of Nations.