Summary of the Treaty of Versailles 

Basically, this infamous treaty is what ended WWI. At the time, it was believed to have brought forth peace; however, there has been much debate over the repercussions of this so-called treaty. To sum it up, the involved nations of WWI all met at the Paris Peace Conference, where a total of 27 countries were present, with Germany not being one of them. After having agreed upon certain terms, the present countries practically forced Germany to sign and agree to the treaty or the Allied powers would continue warring upon them. Facing the current “either, or” fallacy, Germany signed only under duress. Within this treaty however, included numerous articles, all of which were unfair and directed towards Germany. The main demands are able to be categorized into 3 sections which were as followed: necessary military action, obligatory political action, and demanded financial action. 

The military was obliged to do as follows: Germany would strip and relieve itself of nearly all importation, exportation, and production of war material; limit its navy to 24 submarines; reduce its army to 100,000; maintain naval personnel below 15,000; and abandon all military and naval aviation in the next 4 months. 

Politically imposed to do as follows: transfer significant amounts of territory from the former German empire to its neighbors, even land that had belonged to Germany prior to the war; maintain a stable peace and neutral stance with all countries.

Financially, Germany was weighted with all the reparations of the war because they had been found as the cause of the war and guilty for everything within it.