The Paris Peace Conference was the meeting of the Allied victors, following the end of World War I to set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers following the armistices of 1918. It took place in Paris during 1919 and involved diplomats from more than 32 countries and nationalities. The major decisions were the creation of the League of Nations; the five peace treaties with defeated enemies, including the Treaty of Versailles with Germany; the awarding of German and Ottoman overseas possessions as "mandates," chiefly to Britain and France; reparations imposed on Germany, and the drawing of new national boundaries (sometimes with plebiscites) to better reflect the forces of nationalism. The main result was the Treaty of Versailles, with Germany, which in section 231 laid the guilt for the war on "the aggression of Germany and her allies." This provision proved humiliating for Germany and set the stage for very high reparations Germany was supposed to pay (it paid only a small portion before reparations ended in 1931).
The "Big Four" were the President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson; the Prime Minister of Great Britain, David Lloyd George; the Prime Minister of France, Georges Clemenceau; and the Prime Minister of Italy, Vittorio Orlando. They met together informally 145 times and made all the major decisions, which in turn were ratified by the others.
- ^ a b Rene Albrecht-Carrie, Diplomatic History of Europe Since the Congress of Vienna (1958) p. 363