How did the Allies’ point of view affect Germany during the peace process after World War I?
Answers
Five long months later, on June 28—exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo—the leaders of the Allied and associated powers, as well as representatives from Germany, gathered in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles to sign the final treaty. By placing the burden of war guilt entirely on Germany, imposing harsh reparations payments and creating an increasingly unstable collection of smaller nations in Europe, the treaty would ultimately fail to resolve the underlying issues that caused war to break out in 1914, and help pave the way for another massive global conflict 20 years later.
The Paris Peace Conference: None of the defeated nations weighed in, and even the smaller Allied powers had little say.
Formal peace negotiations opened in Paris on January 18, 1919, the anniversary of the coronation of German Emperor Wilhelm I at the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. World War I had brought up painful memories of that conflict—which ended in German unification and its seizure of the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine from France—and now France intended to make Germany pay.