JC Griggs

Bakkal per.2

10-8-09

World War I was caused by a mixture of many things. The treaties between

countries were a big factor, Kaiser Wilhelm’s militaristic approach did not help, and the

assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was all reasons why the “Great War” was

started. The war lasted for 4 years and three months. There were over 30 million

casualties from all the countries during the course of this war, thanks in part to new

technologies of machine guns, tear gas, and “trench fighting”. When the war ended, most

of the countries and their economies were devastated. Countries from the winning side,

the Allies, such as France and Great Britain wanted to gain reparations and ended up

putting all of the blame onto the German Empire and the Central Powers. The Versailles

Treaty and the Paris Peace Conference were the events that officially finished World War

I.

The First World War left the economy and political aspects of most European

countries a complete mess. After the war, most European countries could not support

themselves, and having borrowed close to $10 billion from the United States alone, had a

huge financial debt. It was difficult for countries to pay off all this debt because trade

and industry still had not picked up. Most countries people were extremely disgruntled

and in Italy they became so displeased that they overthrew the government. Since these

countries had all of this money they had to pay back, they attempted to find ways to repay

these loans. The route most countries took was they attempted to become economically
self-sufficient. They raised the tariffs to exorbitant amounts to try to keep other countries

products out of their country.

The Paris Peace Conference had only about half the countries from the war

attending, with simply 32 of the over 60 countries that participated in the war invited to

take part in the treaty negotiations. Two of the biggest empires before the war, Germany

and Russia, were not invited to take partake in these negotiations. Though there was still

32 countries participating in negotiations, the discussions were mostly between the “Big

3”; President Woodrow Wilson from the United States, Prime Minister David Lloyd

George from Great Britain, and Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau from France. They

overshadowed and were behind every decision made during the peace conference.

Though these three powerful men had their differences, they all agreed upon two

important matters when outlining the treaty. Ever since Russia had pulled out of the war

in 1917, they had been run by a communist government. The Big 3 knew that in order to

keep communism from spreading, they had to make sure the countries surrounding

Russia were strong enough to fight off the pressure of going to communism. The second

thing was that they had worked all war to awaken patriotism in their country, and all had

bitterness towards the enemy nations. These countries, especially the European countries

had lost lives, were destroyed economically, and in France’s case, suffered damages

because the war front was on their land and wanted severe reparations to compensate for

these damages accumulated. They blamed all of the war on Germany and expected them

to pay over $30 billion to pay the damages of the war.

The League of Nations was something Woodrow Wilson wanted to set up under

his 14 Points that was included in the Treaty of Versailles. The League of Nations never
took off as an international peacekeeping body since the United States, the country that

proposed the plan and also the largest and most economically sound nation, did not even

get the Treaty of Versailles approved through Senate because it feared that they would

get involved in another war if it joined. Under the League of Nations there was the

Mandate System that was put into place to administer former territories of the German

and Ottoman empires. In order for a country to be put under the mandate system, they

must first remove the territory from the previous controlling states; then that territory

must be transferred to a state within the League of Nations. They attempted to watch

over territories and countries that could not run themselves that used to be under someone

from the Central Powers control. Some of the territories that were mandated from the

Central Powers include Lebanon, Palestine, and the Territory of New Guinea.

The Treaty of Versailles had three basic ideas along with the League of Nations.

The first one dealt with territories. Germany was to lose all of its past territories that it

had collected in the past. France received its territories of Alsace and Lorraine back that

it had dearly wanted since before the war. Also all African colonies were taken from

Germany and parts of Germany were given back to Denmark, Belgium, and Poland was

recreated as a state from a piece of Germany. Something that the writers of the Treaty

overlooked was that when they took the coal-producing area of Germany, the Saar, this

took away a part of Germany’s economy and a means in which Germany could pay back

reparations. The next idea that was put into the Treaty was disarmament of Germany.

Germany was almost completely disarmed and its military was drastically shrunken to an

army of only 100,000 men, only half a dozen battleships allowed for their navy, and were

not allowed any airplanes or their famous U-boats. The final idea placed into the Treaty
is that they put all of the blame of the war on Germany. It blames Germany and its Allies

for starting the war and inflicting so much damage. This was a bad decision because it

damaged their national pride and made the German people want revenge against the

countries that dealt these parameters against them and was a reason for World War II.

There were other treaties that were made other than the Treaty of Versailles. There was

the Treaty of St. Germain in which Austria was punished for its role in the start of World

War I. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was split up and new states were created in its

place. The Treaty of Trianon and the Treaty of Neuilly dealt with Hungary and Bulgaria

and pretty much did the same thing as the Treaty of St. Germain. It took land away form

both, limited their military, split up parts of their nation, and of course both countries had

to pay reparations. Italy was left out of the Treaty after switching sides in 1915 and

signing a treaty saying they will get certain land with the Allies. This makes them bitter

towards Great Britain, France, and all the countries that were part of the conference.

When Russia left the war because of the revolution that was occurring back home,

it took a lot of men out of the war for the Allies. It also allowed Germany to begin

focusing all of its men on the Western front instead of its focus being split between the

Western and the Eastern fronts. The reason Russia pulled out of the war was because the

government of Russia had just been overthrown by Vladimir Lenin and his supporters.

The people of Russia were quite upset by the fact they had suffered by far the most

casualties during the whole war and that the war took people out of the farms and

workplace to join in the action which caused a shortage of food and famine throughout

Russia. This and the fact there was a terrible winter the year before gave Lenin the

firepower behind him to initiate the revolution. Russia pulling out of the war could have
ended badly for the Allies if he United States did not come in to help and provide some

manpower to make up for the loss of men. This revolution caused Russia to be held out

of the Paris Peace Conference. When Russia came out of the revolution they were a

communist country, and the Big 3 were wary of communism and did not invite Russia to

the conference because of this. This made Russia upset because they felt like they

deserved some form of reparations for having lost the most troops. Some people believe

this exclusion from the Treaty and Peace Conference is reason for Russia joining with

Germany and the Axis Powers in World War II.

There are many things that should have been done different after World War I.

We only know that from hindsight, and know the leaders of the world back then were

doing what they thought was best then. The results were that some countries were left

extremely unhappy and felt excluded after being barred from making any decisions in the

Paris Peace Conference and want revenge, which they get somewhat later in history. The

economy in Europe was in disarray and four empires got dismantled after the war, with

all of their territories and some of their most needed land to pay for the reparations being

taken away. Some things that were done well were attempting to make a group of

nations to where everyone is unified in the League of Nations. Even though the League

of Nations failed, it was a setting stone for the successful United Nations. Overall

everything could have been done better, but for what they knew and could do, they did

well enough to keep the countries in check for a few years.

 Bibliography

• "World War I - Course of the War 1914-18." TheCorner. Web. 09 Oct. 2009.

<http://www.thecorner.org/hist/wwi/results.htm#clemenceau>.

• "WikiAnswers - How did the Russian Revolution affect World War 1."

WikiAnswers - The Q&A wiki. Web. 09 Oct. 2009.

<http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_did_the_Russian_Revolution_affect_World_W

ar_1>.

• "Causes of the Russian Revolution of February/March 1917." GCSE Modern

World History Revision Site. Web. 09 Oct. 2009.

<http://www.johndclare.net/Russ3.htm>.

• "League of Nations mandate -." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Web. 09 Oct.

2009. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Nations_mandate>.