145 The Treaty of Versailles
29.5: The Treaty of Versailles
29.5.1: Diplomatic Goals at the Paris Peace Conference
The “Big Four” (United States, Great Britain, France, and Italy) made all the major decisions of the Paris Peace Conference, although they disagreed on several points.
Learning Objective
Identify the key goals of the parties present at the Paris Peace Conference
Key Points
- World War I was settled by the victors at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.
- Two dozen nations sent delegations and there were many nongovernmental groups, but the defeated powers were not invited.
- The “Big Four,” who made all the major decisions, were President Woodrow Wilson of the United States, Prime Minister David Lloyd George of Great Britain, George Clemenceau of France, and of least importance, Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando.
- Each major power had its own agenda coming to the Conference and not every aim was represented in the final treaties.
- The Americans’ vision was set out in Wilson’s Fourteen Points, which emphasized free trade, self-determination, and the founding of a League of Nations to support territorial and political independence of member nations.
- British aims at the conference were focused on securing France, settling territorial disputes, and maintaining their colonial holdings.
- Having witnessed two German attacks on French soil in the last 40 years, France’s main concern was to ensure Germany would not be able to attack them again, so they pushed to weaken Germany militarily, strategically, and economically.
- Italy was motivated by gaining the territories promised by the Allies in the secret Treaty of London.
Key Terms
- George Clemenceau
- A French politician, physician, and journalist who served as Prime Minister of France during the First World War. A leader of the Radical Party, he played a central role in the politics of the French Third Republic. He was one of the principal architects of the Treaty of Versailles at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Nicknamed “Père la Victoire” (Father Victory) or “Le Tigre” (The Tiger), he took a harsh position against defeated Germany, though not quite as much as the President Raymond Poincaré, and won agreement on Germany’s payment of large sums for reparations.
- David Lloyd George
- British Liberal politician and statesman. As Chancellor of the Exchequer (1908–1915), he was a key figure in the introduction of many reforms that laid the foundations of the modern welfare state. His most important role came as the highly energetic Prime Minister of the Wartime Coalition Government (1916–22), during and immediately after the First World War. He was a major player at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 that reordered Europe after the defeat of the Central Powers.
- Woodrow Wilson
- An American politician and academic who served as the 28th President of the United States from 1913 to 1921. Leading a Congress in Democratic hands, he oversaw the passage of progressive legislative po