Treaty of Versailles - History GCSE

• The guns fell silent, the killing of the first world war stopped as an Armistice with Germany was signed


  11th of November 1918
• Delegates from all over the world came to Paris to conclude the peace settlements that would end the war


  January 1919
• 6 months of haggling in conference rooms climaxed with the signing of a treaty with Germany in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles
• The three men who dominated the peacemaking


  • American president Woodrow Wilson
  • French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau
  • British Prime Minister David Lloyd George
• A generation of historians like Margaret MacMillan are challenging the view of the Paris peace conference as a failed peace with Germany
• The trouble with hindsight is you know how the story ends and so you look back for things that tell you that the story was bound to end this way, but that's not really how events unfold
• The historians argue that the peace conference was a realistic attempt to shape the map of Europe, and they were dealing with factors way outside their control or anyone else's control
• They see Paris as a global summit with a liberal progressive agenda for the world and urge greater understanding for the peacemakers of 1919 as they face dilemmas which remain grimly familiar to us today
• The first world war had left 10 million dead and twice that number seriously wounded and maimed for life
• 25% of France's male population between 18 and 30 was either dead or wounded, and the fighting had devastated whole areas of northern France
• Germany had also suffered, with 1.8 million Germans dead by the end of the war
• Unlike at the end of the second world war in 1945, there was no Allied invasion of Germany, and the German Army itself marched back from the frontiers in good order
• The simultaneous collapse of four powers - the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and the Russia of the Tsars - was unprecedented, and meant that the map of Europe would have to be redrawn
• During the peace conference, there was fighting continuing in the East, but Allied troops were being quickly demobilized and those who waited to go home were impatient even mutinous
• Woodrow Wilson, the American president, had a meteoric rise in American politics and led America to war in April 1917
• Wilson had a Presbyterian belief in punishment for Germany but also believed in Redemption, and his 14 points addressed to Congress in January 1918 promised a new more open diplomacy, a belief in national self-determination, and the moral supremacy of democracy
• Wilson's arrival in Paris in December 1918 was an extraordinary event, with a parade accompanied by a remarkable demonstration of enthusiasm and affection from the Parisians
• The American delegation made its headquarters at the luxurious Hotel de Crillon on the Place de la Concorde, in contrast to the simple lifestyle of the Prime Minister of France, Georges Clemenceau
• Clemenceau had a polished contempt for the President of France, Raymond Poincaré, and relished his own nickname "The Tiger"
• David Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, arrived in Paris with Clemenceau and Wilson, completing the triumvirate of power
• Lloyd George had a reputation as a politician of infinite flexibility, and wanted a stable Europe that would not again mean that Britain had to interfere in Continental matters
• The official opening of the peace conference took place on the 18th of January 1919 in the Salon de l'Horloge at the French Foreign Ministry, with 32 countries sending delegates
• Woodrow Wilson insisted that a League of Nations was the first item on the conference agenda, as he saw it as the most important thing and the thing that would justify his decision in bringing America into the war
• The League of Nations commission started meeting on February 3rd in Colonel House's rooms, and they hammered out what was called the Covenant of the League of Nations
• Clemenceau scoffed at Wilson's idealism, and wanted a League of Nations with a very strong establishment, without the "germ" that Wilson wanted
• During the breaks, delegates discovered the many delights of Paris, with entertainment at the Hotel Majestic being peculiarly British
• A young kitchen assistant from Vietnam, Hồ Chí Minh, sent a petition to the peace conference requesting independence from France for his country, but got no reply
• Harold Nicholson met Marcel PR for dinner at The Ritz
• The novelist was fascinated by the peacemaking and demanded pran detail about how exactly it worked
• Committees at the peace conference


  1. Take a car from the delegation

  2. Get out at the Kor

  3. Climb the stairs

  4. Go into the room
• A young kitchen assistant from Vietnam named Hoi Min, the future revolutionary, sent a petition to the peace conference requesting independence from France for his country but got no reply
• Canada's legal expert wrote to his wife about the culture to be had in Paris, something earthy at the Folly berer something a little more elevating at the Opera
• The Canadian law expert was struck by the women of Paris, describing how elegant they were on the stage and off, and how sometimes they didn't wear very many clothes, and how attractive their ankles were
• The Canadian law expert's wife wrote to him saying she was coming to join him, but he wrote back a persuasive letter saying Paris was about to have a revolution, she wouldn't get enough to eat, and she probably wouldn't have anywhere decent to stay, and she may have to walk back to the channel ports for safety
• Beyond the salons and dining rooms of Paris, Europe was mentally and physically exhausted, communism was spreading from the East following the success of the Bolsheviks in Russia, there had been Insurrection in Germany, a communist government would soon be established in Hungary
• On the 19th of February, Clono was shot by an anarchist Emil Codan as he was leaving his flat, but he survived to complain about his would-be assassin's marksmanship
• When Woodrow Wilson returned to Paris on the 14th of March, the atmosphere was markedly different, with the French press being very hostile, making jokes about Mrs Wilson and saying her skirts were too short and she didn't know how to dress properly
• The central preoccupation of the peace conference was the final settlement with Germany, the Treaty of Versailles
• It was agreed that Germany should be punished for the recent catastrophe, as the Allies believed Germany had started the war and should pay for its aggression
• A reparations committee met in the Splendor of the Ministry of Finance on the rud de rivy, with delegates briefed by the leaders trying to decide what Germany could or should pay and who might get these reparations