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Analysis Of The End Of World War I

      When World War I ended on November 11, 1918, peace talks went on
for months due to the Allied leaders wanting to punish the enemy and
dividing the spoils of war. A formal agreement to end the war was
made and called the Treaty of Versailles. The issue that took the most
time were the territorial issues because the empires of Russia,
Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman, and Germany had collapsed. These fallen
empires had to be divided up and Americas President Woodrow Wilson,
Georges Clemenceau of France, Vittorio Orlando of Italy, and David
Lloyd George of Great Britain, were the main deciders of this deal.
      During 1918, Russia was knocked out of the war due to military
defeats and the Bolshevik Revolution. Even though Russia had not been
part of the Central Powers, Germany seized much of western Russia.
After many months of arguing, the four men had made western Russia
into the nations of Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Poland.
The Treaty of Versailles was either a treaty of peace or a
vengeance for the Germans. In April of 1919, Germany was previously
captured and made to wait in a small house that was surrounded with
barbed wire.
      The Allied, who captured Germany, wanted to make a peace treaty
to end the fighting. The Germans agreed, but they wanted a treaty that
was based on the Fourteen Points but obviously they were not going to
get it because of the way they were treated; the barbed wire was
unnecessary and should have tipped them off to what lay ahead.
When the treaty was first introduced to the Germans, they declined
to sign it. It forced the Germans to accept full responsibility for
the war and strip themselves of its colonies, coal fields, and the
provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. It also made them pay outrageous
reparations to the Allies. Nevertheless, on June 28, 1919, the Germans
reluctantly signed the treaty because the Allies refused to change one
word. Out of the $33 billion...