147 The Final Treaty
29.5.3: The Final Treaty
After the war, the Paris Peace Conference imposed a series of peace treaties on the Central Powers, officially ending the war. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles dealt with Germany and, building on Wilson’s Fourteen Points, created the League of Nations in June 1919.
Learning Objective
Describe the final treaty signed by the belligerants
Key Points
- The major decisions at the Paris Peace Conference were the creation of the League of Nations; the five peace treaties with defeated enemies; the awarding of German and Ottoman overseas possessions as “mandates,” chiefly to Britain and France; and the drawing of new national boundaries to better reflect the forces of nationalism.
- The Central Powers had to acknowledge responsibility for “all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by” their aggression.
- In the Treaty of Versailles, this statement was Article 231, which became known as War Guilt clause because of the resentment and humiliation it caused many Germans.
- The Treaty of Versailles also forced Germany to disarm, make substantial territorial concessions, and pay reparations to certain countries that formed the Entente powers.
- The redrawing of the world map at these conferences created many critical conflict-prone international contradictions; these became one of the causes of World War II.
Key Terms
- Carthaginian peace
- The imposition of a brutal “peace” achieved by completely crushing the enemy. The term derives from the peace imposed on Carthage by Rome. After the Second Punic War, Carthage lost all its colonies, was forced to demilitarize and pay a constant tribute to Rome, and could enter war only with Rome’s permission. At the end of the Third Punic War, the Romans systematically burned Carthage to the ground and enslaved its population.
- White Russia
- A loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces that fought the Bolsheviks, also known as the Reds, in the Russian Civil War (1917–1923) and to a lesser extent, continued operating as militarized associations both outside and within Russian borders until roughly the Second World War.
- Treaty of Versailles
- The most important of the peace treaties that ended World War I. It was signed on June 28, 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
Final Treaties of the Paris Peace Conference
Five major peace treaties were prepared at the Paris Peace Conference (with the affected countries in parentheses):
- The Treaty of Versailles, June 28, 1919, (Germany)
- The Treaty of Saint-Germain, September 10, 1919, (Austria)
- The Treaty of Neuilly, November 27, 1919, (Bulgaria)
- The Treaty of Trianon, June 4, 1920, (Hungary)
- The Treaty of Sèvres, August 10, 1920; subsequently revised by the Treaty of Lausanne, July 24, 1923, (Ottoman Empire/Republic of Turkey).
The major decisions were the establishment of t