Evaluate the successes and failures of the Paris Peace conference in creating a stable European Community in the post WWI era.

World War I was a war fought between the Allied Forces and the Central powers. The battle was level, with many under the belief that Germany would be the winner. This, soon, changed as America joined the Allied Forces in a period were Germany had no more resources to fight and defeat would be inevitable. World War I ended on the 11th of November 1918. The Paris Peace Conference was held in 1919 and it was a meeting between the allied victors to negotiate the fate of the defeated Central Powers. Its main purpose was to set peace terms, or limits, by creating a series of treaties for the Central Powers so they couldn’t act up as a form of retaliation. There are historians who say that the Paris Peace Conference was a success, those that say it was a failure and those that say that it was ineffectual, and the best that could have happened at the time, to the events that followed. I am here to argue that the conflicting interests of The Big Three, led to a rise in nationalism which resulted in the ultimate failure of the Paris Peace Conference.

The first major problem of the conference was the fact that although most countries that had an involvement with WWI were represented, except Germany and Russia. This created problems later because by excluding Germany this created the feeling that decisions made were one sided and that the Treaty was unfair to them, which led to a need for revenge and a birth of new nationalistic ideas. Russia also didn’t part –take in this conference because it was under a communist regime and a working class uprising back home was every leader’s fear. Therefore, even though 32 countries were involved, all the major decisions were made by the Big Three which were mostly looking out for themselves rather than keeping peace.

The USA tried to be impartial and focused its attention on trying to create an organization that would deal with each countries problem equally, through the creation of the League of Nations. USA also brought forth the idea of self-determination, the freedom for people to govern themselves, which led to the creation of new countries in Europe. France, at the opposite end, was the most ruthless and demanded punishment for Germany. They wanted severe reparations for Germany and this can be seen by the increase of an approximate 35 billion by the time the peace conference had ended. England wanted revenge from the Central Powers, but not to the extent France was pushing for. Rather, they pushed for the expansion of The British Empire rather than the extinction of Germany. The results of this were broken down, poor countries and this is considered by many as a key to the inflation and Great Depression in Germany, as well as opening the door for nationalistic ideas and leaders to take charge.

The treaties of the Paris Peace Conference, did, however succeed in reshaping Europe physically. During WWI one of the biggest disasters was the genocide of the Armenian people. Because of what the Ottoman’s had done, The Treaty of Sevres made sure that a country would be formed called Armenia. Many more countries were formed, in an act of self determination that used to be a part of the now fallen empires. While this shaping of Europe, in majority, can still is seen today it still has its faults. New feuds were born between the people that owned the land and its new owners that were given the land under the Paris Peace Conference. We also had the problem of loss of identity because people didn’t have a nationality as a result of this border shifting. This reshaping didn’t lead to issues on the newly established country, but also the country it was separated from. For example, Russia went into an economic crisis because of the loss of land (Ukraine, Estonia and Lithuania). While this is close to what US was suggesting, Britain shaped it up so they could benefit. Rhineland was given to the British for 15 years under evaluation and France got Alsace and Lorraine as a mean for them to agree to sign this treaty.

The treaties also argued that in order to have a safer Europe, everybody had to downsize in army. It was only forced upon the Central Powers and while it was suggested to the Allies, there is little evidence that any downsizing took place. In conjunction with the high reparations imposed on Germany and the loss of jobs by downsizing spelt catastrophe for its economy that inevitably collapsed during the Great Depression. The huge unemployment rate and the poor level of life of society created more ground for nationalistic leaders to rise from. France wanted the complete destruction of the German army but, England wanted to downsize Germany’s army enough so they couldn’t start another war and be left open to attack if they were to act upon the treaty of peace. Of course, being Great Britain, they wanted Germany to downsize their navy because they wanted to re establish their name on the top of the naval battle that the two had gone into before and during WW1. This all backfired though, in 1939 when Germany had more than enough fire power to seek the vengeance they were looking for.

The conference’s main goal was to bring stability into Europe after the war. Certain countries gained their independence, new borders were drawn up that looked and there was a general decision to downsize in army so such a world war wouldn’t happen again. These can also be considered as auspicious reasons since the winners had become stronger, certain countries didn’t get their independence rather just changed from being a mandate for one country to another (Syria). The conferences, while might have brought some short term peace in Europe, were mainly benefitting The Big Three rather than the whole of Europe.