The treaty was drafted during the Paris Peace Conference in the spring of 1919,
which was dominated by the "Big Four." The Big Four was composed of David
Lloyd George of Britain, Georges Clemanceau of France, Woodrow Wilson of the
United States, and Vittorio Orlando of Italy.
The treaty included a "war guilt clause." It deemed Germany the aggressor in the
war and consequently made Germany responsible for making reparations to the
Allied nations in payment for the losses and damage they had sustained in the
war. It was impossible to compute the exact sum to be paid as reparations for the
damage caused by the Germans, especially in France and Belgium, at the time the
treaty was being drafted. "The losses were assessed to be $33,000,000,000"
(Garraty 848). Can you imagine?!?
". . .More than one thousand five hundred millions were lent a few years later
to Germany, principally by the United States and Great Britain, thus enabling
the ruin of the war to be rapidly repaired in Germany" (Churchill 9). This
provides evidence that there was no way that Germany could ever pay all that
France claimed they owed. The United States helped Germany intensely with their
economic problems in the years following the war.
"The Big Four wanted to make sure that Germany would never again pose a military
threat to the rest of Europe, so the treaty contained a number of clauses to
guarantee this aim" ("Versailles" 331).
It was bitterly criticized by the Germans, who felt that these rules were being
dictated to them. Afterwards, the rules were greatly changed in Germany's
favor. According to historians, as is stated in the encyclopedia, this "paved
the way for the upsurge of German militarism in the 1930s" (Versailles 331).
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Articles of the Treaty of Versailles
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