Did the End of WWI Cause the Start of WWII?
Published: 23 June 2025
By Fareeha Arshad
via the Medium website
treaty-of-versailles-is-signed-by-prime-minister-clemenceau
Treaty of Versailles is signed by Prime minister Clemenceau signs for France at the peace conference June 1919.
The Treaty of Versailles
World War I left behind a devastated landscape with over 30 million military casualties, decimated cities, and millions more civilians caught in the carnage. When the guns finally fell silent on November 11, 1918, the world exhaled, but the peace that everybody wanted didn’t come easily.
It would take months of bitter negotiations at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference to settle the terms. And presiding over it all were three of the most powerful men of the time: French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, and US President Woodrow Wilson (D-New Jersey). Wilson was also the first sitting American president to cross the Atlantic on official business.
Wilson came armed with a bold, idealistic vision to reshape Europe through diplomacy, democracy, and his cornerstone idea was to lay the foundations for a League of Nations. But Clemenceau and Lloyd George, representing nations battered by years of trench warfare and millions of dead soldiers, were not interested in idealism. They wanted retribution.
Thus, the Treaty of Versailles was signed in the opulent Palace of Versailles, forged in tension and resentment.
Germany and the other defeated Central Powers were not even allowed a seat at the negotiating table. By the time the treaty was made public, they found themselves stripped of dignity and power.
→ Read the entire article on the Medium website.
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