1. Europe Between the Wars
- Devastation
- 14 Points
- Treaty of Versailles and Germany
- League of Nations
- New Map of Europe

2. Europe Between the Wars: 1919-1939

3. The War to End All Wars Europe devastated.
8.5 million killed; 21 million wounded.
England, France and Germany were creditor states before the war.
After the war, they were debtor nations.
Photo: Ruins of Ypres, Belgium, in 1919.
Creditor: Other countries owed them money.
Debtor: They owed money to other countries (principally the U.S.).

4. The Fourteen Points (intended)
"Open covenants of peace“
"Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas"
Free trade
"Adequate guarantees" of disarmament
Colonial self-determination
6-13. Specific provisions relating to Russia, Belgium, France, Italy, Austria-Hungary, the Balkan nations, Turkey, and Poland
14. A general association of Nations
* 14 points to be used for the Peace Conference following the war. All states including Germany were expecting a fair and open discussion
1919 cartoon by George Adams
"Can He Produce Harmony?"

5. Armistice with Germany (actual)
World War One, "the Great War," ended on November 11, 1918, with the signing of the Armistice Treaty.
The signing took place in a railway carriage in the Compiègne Forest, France.
Principal signatories were Marshal Ferdinand Foch of France, the Allied commander-in-chief, and Matthias Erzberger, Germany's representative.

6. Treaty of Versailles: Major Provisions
Remember that due to the 14 points all states were expecting a fair discussion
Surrender of German colonies as League of Nations mandates.
German territory ceded to France, Belgium, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia and Poland.
Germany to pay war reparations to France and Great Britain.
Germany to accept sole guilt for causing the war (signed under duress).
German troops banned from Rhine Valley (part of Germany).
German army limited to 100,000 men, with no conscription, no tanks, no heavy artillery and no aircraft.
German navy limited to vessels under 100,000 tons, with no submarines.

7. Germany Signs Under Protest
Germany had no part in negotiating the terms of the treaty, and signed it under protest (under duress). 14 points misled Germany into expecting a fair discussion
The humiliation and betrayal that many Germans felt would contribute to the rise of Nazism.
Territorial loss, onerous reparations, and the sole guilt clause generated resentment that Hitler would exploit.
Hitler designed the cartoon depicting a chained Germania beneath the slogan "Only National Socialism will free Germany from the lie of sole guilt!"
"Not only have I united the German people politically, but I have also rearmed them. I have also endeavored to destroy, sheet by sheet, that treaty (Versailles) which in its 448 articles contains the vilest oppression which peoples and human beings have ever been expected to endure." -Hitler addressing Reichstag, 1935

8. Keynes on the Harsh Treaty of Versailles
"Moved by insane delusion and reckless self-regard, the German people overturned the foundations on which we all lived and built. But the spokesmen of the French and British peoples have run the risk of completing the ruin, which Germany began, by a Peace which, if it is carried into effect, must impair yet further, when it might have restored, the delicate, complicated organization, already shaken and broken by war, through which alone the European peoples can employ themselves and live."
- John Maynard Keynes
The Economic Consequences of the Peace
Keynes, one of the most important economists of the 20th century, was a British delegate to the Paris Peace Conference. He argued that the harsh reparation imposed on Germany could not be paid by a country already devastated by war, and would lead to further conflict in Europe.

9. Point 14 of 14 points: an general association of Nations
"The League is very well when sparrows shout, but no good at all when eagles fall out." - Benito Mussolini

10. League of Nations ( )
The League of Nations, an international organization dedicated to disarmament and peaceful resolution of international conflict, was Wilson’s great project and intention for long term peace(14 points).
Actual …
The United States never joined the League of Nations.
Germany joined in 1926, and withdrew in 1933.
The Soviet Union joined in 1934, but was expelled following the Soviet attack on Finland in 1939.
After WWII, the League was replaced by the United Nations.

11. New European States Were Created from the Old Austro-Hungarian Empire
Conflicting values expressed in Wilson’s Fourteen Points and the Treaty of Versailles influenced the determination of national borders in Eastern Europe.
Wilson strongly advocated national self-determination.
But France feared any arrangement that would strengthen Germany.
The new national divisions left large German and Hungarian minorities in a number of countries
● Austria
● Hungary
● Czechoslovakia
● Yugoslavia
● Poland
● Some Austro-Hungarian lands were ceded to Romania, Ukraine and Italy
Nationalist conflicts within the empire were one of the causes of WWI, and led to the ultimate collapse of the empire.

12. Pre WWI Europe Post WWI Europe

13. Close up of post WWI Europe

14. The Middle East After the Fall of the Ottoman Empire
●For centuries, the Ottoman Empire dominated the Middle East, northern Africa, and southeast Europe.
● The empire entered WWI on the side of Germany.
● After the war, it collapsed. Turkey became a republic.
● Many new states were also formed and administered by France and England.