Wednesday, February 3, 2010

World War I Peace Settlement

On the allied side a major, formal agreement was made between the three powers: Great Britain, France and the United States. If these three countries weren't already considered world powers, their status was now made official. The forming of the League of Nations also solidified the three countries' allegiance to each other. Great Britain and the United States, through their pledge of protection in case of a future German attack, let the world know that three of the world's most powerful countries were united.

The War Guilt Clause paved the way for a charismatic leader to take advantage of national anger and lead Germany back into its previous world-power status. By levying such a heavy penalty on Germany the allies pushed the Germans a little too far. The heavy reparations money the Germans had to pay, the reduction of all things military and the reduction of German territory was necessary, but it still led a hunger to recover the country's past glory and more.

And let's not forget to give a hand to nationalism. Nationalism was the big winner of World War I as the map of Eastern Europe was redrawn and many new countries emerged. Big empires like the Russian and German empires were reduced and the Austria-Hungary empire disappeared into independent countries. However the difficulty of dividing up all the diverse ethnicities in Europe would lead to conflict later. People of different ethnicities just didn't get along and when there were minorities there were problems.

Lastly, Great Britain and France couldn't resist keeping their hands out of the cookie jar and controlled Middle Eastern countries that used to be the Ottoman Empire. Despite US President Woodrow Wilson's talks about democratic nations there was still a lot of European influence in the Arab world after World War I.

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