When World War I ended on November 11, 1918, peace talks went on for

months due to the Allied leaders wanting to punish the enemy and

"dividing the spoils of war."�

A formal agreement to end the war was made and called the Treaty of

Versailles. The issue that took the most time were the territorial

issues because the empires of Russia, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman, and

Germany had collapsed. These fallen empires had to be divided up and

America's President Woodrow Wilson, Georges Clemenceau of France,

Vittorio Orlando of Italy, and David Lloyd George of Great Britain, were

the main deciders of this deal.

During 1918, Russia was knocked out of the war due to military

defeats and the Bolshevik Revolution. Even though Russia had not been

part of the Central Powers, Germany seized much of western Russia.

After many months of arguing, the four men had made western Russia into

the nations of Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Poland.

The Treaty of Versailles was either a treaty of peace or a

vengeance for the Germans. In April of 1919, Germany was previously

captured and made to wait in a small house that was surrounded with

barbed wire.

The Allied, who captured Germany, wanted to make a peace treaty to

end the fighting. The Germans agreed, but they wanted a treaty that was

based on the Fourteen Points but obviously they were not going to get it

because of the way they were treated; the barbed wire was unnecessary

and "should have tipped them off to what lay ahead."�

When the treaty was first introduced to the Germans, they declined

to sign it. It forced the Germans to accept full responsibility for the

war and strip themselves of its colonies, coal fields, and the provinces

of Alsace and Lorraine. It also made them pay outrageous reparations to

the Allies. Nevertheless, on June 28, 1919, the Germans reluctantly

signed the treaty because the Allies refused to change one word. Out of

the $33 billion dollars the Germans had to pay for damages, the country

was only able to pay $4.5 billion of it.

The terms of the Treaty of Versailles helped set the stage for

another world war less than 20 years later because the Allied wanted to

stop Germany from ever becoming imperialistic again and still have them

pay the war reparations.

Germany opposed these actions and was the most effected by the

terms of the Versailles Treaty. Germany got the blunt end of the war

and was desperate to find a new leader to get out of their depression.

That leader was Adolf Hitler.

World War I was won by the Allied in which a formal agreement was

made called the Versailles Treaty. It both brought peace and war in the

coming years. Due to the harsh life styles it forced Germany to live,

World War II broke out within twenty years time from the treaty.