With the lighting of German historians, French and Serbian, Isabelle Gendre detailed analysis a major act and contested signed June 28, 1919.
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This is a salutary lesson in history offered by this documentary about the Versailles Treaty if unfortunate reputation. Treaty signed on 28 June 1919 and would bring the seeds of the Second World War but also explain, due to its territorial divisions, dramas in the Balkans in the early 1990s.
Thanks to the insights provided by German historians, French and Serbian, the detailed account of the negotiations and decisions, historical reminders about the true reasons for the rise of Italian Fascism and German National Socialism in the 1920s, this documentary undermines some ideas.
But it does not avoid the responsibilities of three men, in this case the French Georges Clemenceau, Lloyd George and the British American Woodrow Wilson, who during six months in 1919, remade the world without worrying another, ultimately rejecting the territorial demands of a fourth “winner”, those of the Italian Vittorio Orlando.
On June 28, 1919 in Versailles, fine weather a little cool, everything is done to humiliate the German delegation. According to Le Figaro, the two civilians representing the Weimar Republic responsible for signing this treaty, pale and uncomfortable, “look like Sunday best workers.” Uncomfortable ? There is something. Since January 1919, nearly thirty nations working on the conditions for peace, leaving aside completely Germany.
fatal error
Paris became the center of world diplomacy, including hundreds of American diplomats staying at the Crillon, where President Wilson, came to Europe for six long months, wants to “save the world with the values of Christ.” Two hundred British diplomats settled at the Majestic. The Italians are on the side of the Opera.
At the Quai d’Orsay, 52 expert committees are striving to trace the borders as sometimes strange carvings. Ignoring unfortunately realities such as the Sudeten massive presence of German origin in the territory of the new Czechoslovakia. fatal error.
Between French, British and Americans, interests diverge. Clemenceau has an obsession: to protect the territory of a new German attack. Lloyd George wants to consolidate the British Empire while requesting financial compensation even harsher than the French in Germany. Wilson, he dreams of a “just peace” and imagine a new League of Nations.
Upon arrival, 400 clauses traumatize the German public. Followed by four other treaties: the Saint-Germain-en-Laye (10 September 1919), which deals with the case of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; that of Neuilly (27 November 1919), which removes access to the sea to Bulgaria; that of Trianon (4 June 1920), which dislocates Hungary; and finally that of Sèvres (August 10, 1920) concerning the Ottoman Empire.