End of the Great War and
the Treaty of Versailles
American Intervention, 1917-1918
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May 1915: Lusitania (128 US
citizens)
February 1917: Germany
declared unconditional
submarine warfare
Zimmermann Telegram
 Sent and deciphered in Jan.
1917
 Brits gave it to Wilson Feb.
24, 1917
 Wilson had it published
March 1, 1917
•
6 April 1917: US Congress
approved resolution declaring
war on Germany
President Woodrow Wilson
• 1916: “He kept us out
of war.”
• By 1917 wanted to help
end the war
• Jan. 1918: Fourteen
Points
• Idealistic
• National self-determination
American Intervention was
decisive
• Money and supplies (1917-1918:
$7,000,000,000 worth of food and guns)
• Navy (second largest)
• Men
 March 1918: 85,000 US troops
 Sept. 1918: 1.2 million US troops
• Morale
November 11, 1918:
Armistice!
The “Stab in the Back” Myth
Adolf Hitler
Matthias Erzberger
Spanish Influenza Pandemic,
1918-1920
Spanish Influenza Pandemic
• First appeared in Kansas (but possibly
China)
• Killed 8 million in Spain
• Most deadly to 20-40 year-olds
• Quick death
• 43,000 US soldiers died.
• 17 million died in India (5% of population).
• Infected 500 million people.
• Killed more than 50 million world-wide.
Paris Peace Conference, 1919
Paris Peace Conference
(cont.)
The Big Four:
• David Lloyd George of Britain (mediator)
• Georges Clemenceau of France (wanted revenge,
compensation, to contain Germany)
• Woodrow Wilson of the United States (idealist; national
self-determination; lasting peace)
• Vittorio Orlando of Italy (played a minor role)
John Maynard Keynes
(1883-1940)
• Economic advisor
to Lloyd George
• Quit the conference
• The Economic
Consequences of
the Peace (1920)
Treaty of Versailles
• Between Allies and Germany
• Signed in Hall of Mirrors, Palace of Versailles, June
28, 1919
Treaty of Versailles
• Crucial Terms:
 Clause 231: “War guilt” clause:
 “The Allied and Associated Governments affirm
and Germany accepts the responsibility of
Germany and her allies for causing all the loss
and damage to which the Allied and Associated
Governments and their nationals have been
subjected as a consequence of the war imposed
upon them by the aggression of Germany and
her allies.”
 Clause 232: reparations, eventually calculated
at $33,000,000,000 (1921)
 Covenant of the League of Nations
Things soon begin to fall apart
• US Congress rejected
Versailles Treaty
• Henry Cabot Lodge
• Sept. 1919: Wilson's 8000
mile tour, 40 speeches; 29
cities (22 days)
• Wilson collapsed
• Nov. 2, 1920: Warren
Harding elected US
President
• Aug. 1921: US signed a
separate Treaty with
Germany
Other post-WWI treaties
• Treaty of Saint-Germain, 10 September
1919, (Austria)
• Treaty of Neuilly, 27 November 1919,
(Bulgaria)
• Treaty of Trianon, 4 June 1920, (Hungary)
• Treaty of Sèvres, 10 August 1920 (Ottoman
Empire
• subsequently revised by the Treaty of
Lausanne, 24 July 1923 (Republic of
Turkey)
Post-WWI new nation-states
Nations that gained territory or
independence after World War I
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Australia: German New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago and Nauru
Austria: split from the Austro-Hungarian Empire
Czechoslovakia: split from the Austro-Hungarian Empire
Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania: independence from the Russian
Empire
Hungary: split from the Austro-Hungarian Empire
Japan: gained Jiaozhou Bay and most of Shandong from China
New Zealand: gained control of German Samoa
Poland: from parts of the Austro-Hungarian, German, and Russian
Empires
Romania: Transylvania, Bessarabia, Bukovina
South Africa: gained control of South West Africa
United Kingdom: gained League of Nations Mandates in Africa and the
Middle East
Yugoslavia, as the successor state of the Kingdom of Serbia
Nations that lost territory after World War I
• Austria, as the successor state of Cisleithania and the
Austro-Hungarian Empire
• Bulgaria
• China: lost Jiaozhou Bay and most of Shandong to the
Empire of Japan
• Germany, as successor state of the German Empire
• Hungary, as successor state the Austro-Hungarian Empire
• Russian SFSR, as the successor state of the Russian
Empire
• Turkey, as the successor state of the Ottoman Empire
• United Kingdom: lost most of Ireland as the Irish Free
State, Egypt in 1922