1. The Covenant of the League of Nations - Germany was not allowed to join. The Rhineland was demilitarised - the German army was not allowed to go there. The Saar, with its rich coalfields, given to France for 15 years. Alsace-Lorraine returned to France. Germany forbidden to unite with Austria. Lands in eastern Germany - the rich farmlands of Posen and the Polish corridor between Germany and East Prussia - given to Poland. Danzig made a free city under League of Nations control. All Germany's colonies taken and given to France and Britain as 'mandates'. The German army restricted to 100,000 men. The German navy restricted to six battleships and no submarines. Germany not allowed to have an air force. Germany was responsible for causing all the loss and damage caused by the war. Germany would have to pay reparations, to be decided later - eventually set at 132 billion gold marks.

3. None of the victors were completely happy with it. But, the negotiations were always going to have to be a compromise – that is what negotiations are. At the beginning, perhaps, the winners were very unrealistic. Statesmen as experienced as England’s Harold Nicolson went to Paris thinking that they could come away with a perfect peace. The Treaty of Versailles

4. Different victors had wanted different things, so they couldn’t all have everything they wanted. Britain and France did not want a League of Nations, but Wilson insisted on little else. Clemenceau wanted crippling reparations, but Wilson and Lloyd George didn’t. Two Contentious Issues

5. Perhaps if they had gone to Versailles thinking only of themselves, some of the leaders could have gotten everything they wanted. But the BIG THREE realized they had to do whatever it took to re-build Europe and create a lasting peace and that meant COMPROMISE

6. Remember: The world was in ruins after the greatest war ever. In eastern Europe three great empires had collapsed and there were literally NO countries at all.

7. Thousands of lobbyists went to Paris to try to get what they wanted from the Peace talks. For instance : Queen Mary of Romania, or a delegation of 20 Ukrainians, who wanted independence for their people. The Big Three made the peace amidst a clamour of demands, many of which were directly conflicting. For instance : American Zionists who wanted Palestine for the Jews, VERSUS Arab delegates who wanted Palestine for the Arabs. “you can’t please all of the people all of the time”

8. The real world is complicated. Idealism is often not realistic. How do you sort out the principle of self-determination in Hungary, for instance, which while obviously had many Hungarian nationals – but which also had groups of Germans who had emigrated there centuries earlier? Artificial Divisions were created: There were three and a half million Germans in the newly created Czechoslovakia.

9. HOW do you work out what should be set as reparations – (suggestions ranged wildly from £1 billion to £21 billion)? In the end, the Big Three … ‘passed the buck’. They sanctioned referendums to let people decide for themselves which country they wanted to live in. They set up a Committee of the League of Nations to set the amount of reparations. That meant SOMEONE ELSE makes the decision … which certainly isn’t going to ensure your getting everything you want.

10. The Paris Peace Conference was initially planned as a pre-Conference, where the Big Three were to meet to sort out their own position as victors before they went to negotiate with the Germans. As time went on, and they found it difficult enough just to negotiate with each other, that aim fell by the wayside.

11. and in the end they didn’t negotiate with the Germans at all, but just gave them the Treaty they had negotiated (7 May 1919) and told them to sign it.

12. The Germans went away and made rival proposals, and for a while Lloyd George wondered if they ought not to listen to some of them. But in the end, the Big Three forced Treaty on the Germans with the threat of renewing the war. So perhaps, rather than wondering why the Big Three didn’t get all they wanted from the Peace, we should consider how much less they would have gotten if they had taken Germany’s views into consideration.

13. Assignment Write an essay, following standard essay format, and in your own words, answering this question: Why Didn’t the Victors of World War I Get Everything They Wanted? DUE WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 24, 2014