One-sided negotiations; the Treaty of Versailles
The Paris Peace Conference was the name of the meeting where the Allied countries determined how to create a treaty after WWI had drawn to its conclusion. Each country went in with differing ideas of how things should have been handled; opinions differed from country to country depending on the involvement of said lands. Ultimately however, the decisions were made by America, France, England and Italy, all who wanted Germany to pay reparations that the country, in the state that it was in, was unable to repay. Putting Germany under the gun like this can be regarded as one of the worst mistakes made of that century. The Treaty of Versailles was ineffective, and ultimately became one of the main causes of World War II.
Prior to World War I, countries throughout Europe were in constant debate. It was a race to acquire land, a time dominated by imperialism. Britain and France were already dominant in this field, they had established ownership of their lands and colonies since the 1600’s, but Germany wanted a piece of the action. It went after land in Africa, and often clashed with Britain who had already established a strong hold there. This was also an age of Militarism; everyone wanted to out-do their rivals when it came to their armed forces. It was because of these inherent, nation-wide conflicts that the conditions for a war were set into place so perfectly.
The start of World War I is generally attributed to the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria. It was not so much that he was an important person as it was that he would have been given control of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Because of his death, a chain reaction was started in which many nations who had secret alliances in place had suddenly decided to declare war. When these secret treaties were unveiled, more countries turned on one another.
America joined the war after determining...