The Consequences of the Peace

The Versailles Settlement does not enjoy a good reputation: despite its lofty aim to settle the world s affairs at a stroke, it is widely considered to have set the world on the path to a second major conflict within a generation. Woodrow Wilson s controversial principle of self-determination amplified political complexities in the Balkans, and the war and its settlement bear significant responsibility for boundaries and related conflicts in the Middle East. Furthermore, other objectives of the peacemakers, such as global disarmament and minority protection, are yet to be realised. Almost a century on, the settlement still casts a long shadow.

This book, revised and updated with new material to mark the centenary of the First World War and the approaching centenary of the Peace Conferences themselves, sets the consequences for good or ill of the Paris Peace Treaties into their longer term context and argues that the responsibility for Europe s continuing interwar instability cannot be wholly attributed to the peacemakers of 1919-23.

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