1. WWI: The terms of peace Today’s LEQs: LEQ 2 - How did the war end?
LEQ 3 - Why do historians disagree on who should be blamed for WWI?

2. How did the war end?
Russian Revolution of 1917 forces Russia to exit war
America joins to safeguard democracy in 1917
Germany signs an armistice in Nov

3. The Paris Peace Conference
Allies now face task of arranging peace terms at the Paris Peace Conference
Conflicting viewpoints create long negotiations
Eventually, separate treaties made with each Central Power country
Germany is blamed for the war; penalties outlined in Treaty of Versailles
Discussed reparations – who will pay and how much?
Discussed territorial changes
Wilson proposes League of Nation

4. Early Critics John Maynard Keynes, English Economist
The Economic Consequence of the Peace, 1920

5. Early Critics
Keynes argued that the treaty would bring economic ruin to Europe:
“The treaty includes no provisions for the economic rehabilitation of Europe, - nothing to make the defeated Central Empires into good neighbors, nothing to stabilize the new states of Europe, nothing to reclaim Russia; nor does it promote in any way a compact of economic solidarity amongst the Allies themselves; no arrangement was reached at Paris for restoring the disordered finances of France and Italy, or to adjust the systems of the Old World and the New.”

6. Early Critics
Other critics believed the treaty sowed the seeds of future war…

8. Historians began to debate…
Was Germany really responsible for starting the war?

9. Fates of Former Territories
New boundaries did not match ethnic divisions
Creates problem of nationalist movements
Ethnic groups, like the Armenians in Turkey, brutally oppressed

14. Fates of Former Territories
“Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”

15. Armenian Genocide
Turks launched a genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during WWI
Stopped temporarily after war ended due to foreign outcry
Resumed by 1920
In 1915, Armenian population in Ottoman Empire is 2 million; By 1923, 1.5 million killed, 500,000 deported