Four years of painful fighting and tragic loss for both sides had ceased, but how do the Allies punish Germany? On the twenty-eighth of June 1919, representatives from thirty-two countries met in a grand palace in Versailles forty-two miles outside of Paris for a five-month conference to decide how to punish Germany and her allies.
A treaty was formed. It consisted of seventy-five thousand words, four hundred and forty clauses and two hundred pages, which created the Treaty Of Versailles. The newly formed Republic of Germany had little or no say in the negotiations, and for 2 months refused to sign. Only the threat of military action and occupation made her reluctantly agree to sign it. But was it fair on Germany? Did they deserve the terms of the treaty?
Of those who attended the treaty there were three main participants who made the majority of the decisions. They were; Woodrow Wilson of the USA, Georges Clemenceau of France and David Lloyd George of Britain. But the problems that were faced at the treaty were mostly the result of their differences in opinion. Wilson had a very idealistic view on how the treaty was to be formed and he outlined his views in his ‘Fourteen points’. These were the points that both Wilson and Germany hoped the treaty would be based on. But his ideas did not mention such things as reparations, territorial losses or specific limitation on Military size, all of which play a huge part the final treaty.
