This is the worst calamity of the 20th Century. Woodrow Wilson carries much of the blame for this travesty. In order to get the League of Nations built into the Treaties, he allowed all sorts of injustices to be laid upon the defeated powers.

Rather than the War to End all Wars, this was merely a truce. It gave Hitler and his ilk an winning issue that allowed them to come to power with all the devastation that ensued twenty years later.

This treaty was a sole cause for the war i rate it at 10 ir above

Not so much a bad idea as poor execution. The high ideals that some participants (notably Wilson) brought to the table were drowned in a lust for punitive revenge against the Central Powers. This helped set the stage for the next round of struggle and horror twenty years later.

this is all .... absolutely hopeless i gained no information of this for my project at all

definately the beginning of a new catastrophy. like it was said here from many others: versailles is leading almost directly to Hitler and the second WW. out of our perspective it was the last trial to dictate a peace contract without perspectives for the future. to punish a defeated nation completely. germany lost big parts of its east.it was decided that there were financial reparations to pay till 1988. but the most worse thing in the eyes of the germans: they were called the one and only responsibles. to reach that fair justice peace that wilson promised in his 12 points for peace, they had overthrow the monarchy. it was one of wilsons demands: negotiations only with new political leaders. when the contract was presented finally, they had to notice that germany was treated as the one and only responsible. today we know that wilson wasnt able to realize his vision cause especially france was looking for revenge. however the signing of the contract of versailles was from the begining on a big burden to the young democracy. one of the new democratic leaders said: that arm who will sign this contract will die. besides that: the new political system got a chance. we can see that when we have a look on the first elections where democratical parties got a big majority. to make it short: at least different factors are leading to hitler and WW2. it all had directly and indirectly to do with versailles. a big one was the terrible ecomical situation. under the big burden of the financial reparations and completely dependent on money that was brought into the country as short-term-credits from outside , the economy broke finally down after the black friday in the US. the people lost nearly everything in a hyper-inflation. without asocial system that would have been able to give a support. nearly 12 years the different democratical chancellors tried to get a reduction of what the contract of versailles demanded.they called a policy of fullfillment. they tried to show the world outside that it wasnt possible to fullfill the contract without ruining the country. but they didnt reach big efforts in that. so the radicalistic powers of the left and the right got more and more support. the people had been patient for nearly 12 years. but now they heard the voice of someone who said: see what the democratical parties that signed this contract reached. i ll finish with negotiations. i will destroy the contract of versailles and its system. this was what hitler brought into power finally: the promise to destroy that contract who in the eyes of most people was responsible for all the misery.combined with the bitterness feeling not guilty for what being punished. and hitler did what he promised. till 1939, till the defeat about france in the eyes of the people he destroyed step by step what versailles brought to germany. today we know it was just the first step on the way to WW2 and what followed. what started with versailles just finished when the soviet union broke down. so versailles as the consequence of WW1 was the founding catastrophy of the 20.century.

Way to screw up and set the table for round two.

This treaty was a total disaster. Due to the fact that it basically eliminated Germany's army, that country grew hungry for power, and eventually came the rise of the Nazis, and World War II. The Treaty of Versailles, while it may have seemed like a good idea at first, led to the rise of fascism.

The period after the first World War was the perverbial fork in the road of the 20th Century. The choice was simple: build a collectively constructive, post-imperialist world order or go for the victors spoils. The Treaty of Versailles was a very bad treaty that really only benefited the French and the British. The Germans had to pay billions of dollars worth of reparations that placed an unreasonable burden on the German economy. The first World War was known as the War to end all wars, but really what that war was all about was a race which had been on since the 1870's to see which European monarchy would gain control of the world. There were the Kaisers of Germany and the British and the Hapsburgs of Austria-Hungary. When the Hapsburg regime became de-stabilized, the deck of cards fell and we had a major war on our hands. We got in with the British in the last year of the war (1917). When the British and their allies, the French, won the war, they rejected a very liberal and far-reaching proprosal laid out by US President Woodrow Wilson that included self-determination for colonials and a League of Nations. The British and the French laughed it off. In short, the US fought the war and we got nothing out of it. The British and French got the old Middle Eastern empire of the Ottoman Turks, who got on the wrong side of the matter with the Germans. We helped them expand their empires two times over, and we acted like chumps, letting it happen. See the movie Lawrence of Arabia to see what happened during this time. The US Senate was right in 1919 to reject Versailles; it was a bad treaty that didn't help the US one bit. Wilson wasn't a forceful advocate during the negotiations for the treaty and really we let the British have their way. The nice part about it was that Wilson saw the treaty as perfect and he wouldn't negotiate with the opposition, who had very legitimate concerns about the treaty. Wilson's own stubborness is what destroyed the treaty. We helped the allies win the war, we ought to have had a greater say in the victors terms. The first world war was never really resolved. This lead to a second world war, imperialism in the Middle East and the US returning to isolationism for 25 years. I don't blame the Americans for wanting to hide from the world. We fought in the trenches of France, enduring horrible mustard gas attacks to get nothing out of the war, we only helped a few ingrates enlarge their empire. As for the second world war, I'm sure we could have never envisioned the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich, but certainly we should have known that humiliating the Germans will only keep the political-economic situation in Germany and in fact all of Europe unstable. Again, this was primarily Woodrow Wilson's fault, he was very naive in dealing with the Europeans. They weren't going to buy none of the self-determination for all people stuff. He ought to have worked from that assumption. He didn't play his cards well and he was dealt a big loss, not just for himself, but for our country and our world. On a side note, the Middle East became a mess when the British and French imposed themselves in the region after the war. They drew politically convienient borders that suited their needs. Like in Africa, they bunched people together in nations where they didn't belong. In fact, we're directly paying the price of this right now in Iraq; the British drew those borders in 1921. Iraq was never a nation like that, most of the people there had been at war with each other. The war which was supposed to end imperialism only caused it to expand; the legacy of which we are still paying for today.

One of the most stupid actions of the century. A catastrophe, unmitigated and monstrous. A perfect example of what comes from the impulse to retaliation and revenge. While it may have felt good and even just to the victorious Allies, the death of 55 million people in the Second World War followed inexorably from this terrifying document.

Yup. Talk about something coming back to bite you in the ass.