Describe the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and explain why the Germans .
The First World War displays the disastrous effects caused by conflicts between countries. Millions of people were dead or injured and countries such as France and Belgium were devastated. The great powers had lost significant amount of people and had spent too much money on the war.
Many people wanted Germany to take all the blame, mainly Britain and especially France because out of the three winners they suffered the most during the war.
So all countries agreed that a peace settlement was required to prevent any future ward happening. A peace conference was held in Paris and Germany was not allowed to participate and was excluded from all discussions. Most Germans thought this was unfair and did not accept it. .
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Lloyd George's opinions were in between those of France and America. He wanted to punish Germany but not too severely although Britain had lost substantial amount of civilians due to the war. Wilson had drawn up fourteen points in which he thought would regain peace between the countries and restore the affected countries to their original state.
After much deliberation the Treaty of Versailles was drawn up. The treaty was signed in June 1919 and all the points dealt with the defeated country, Germany. .
Germany had to take the blame of starting the war, which was the war guilt clause. Germans thought that this war extremely harsh and unjust that Germany had to take sole responsibility for causing the world war. The Germans did not accept that they were exclusively to blame for the war, they thought that the blame should be distributed among the countries that had an involvement in the war. This was demeaning and demoralizing for Germany.
Germany's armed forces were restricted in order to prevent Germany from attacking. If the number of soldiers and arsenal were minimal then they would have less chance of being victorious.
