Supplementary Volume in the Great War History; From the Armistice, November 11, 1918, to the Ratification of the Peace Treaty, together with a series of New World Maps in Colors
New York: The Christian Herald, 1920. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. iv, 286, and 32 pages of color maps. Illustrations (tables, charts, photographs, maps). Cover is somewhat worn with top and bottom of spine frayed/torn. Front board weak, restrengthened with glue. Includes Folding Chart on World War Costs of the Principal Nations in Treasure and Men. before title page. Foreword, XXVII chapters and Adjutant General's Report, Final Casualties to February 7, 1920., 32 color maps of Europe, the British Isles, France, Germany, Czecho-Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Roumania, Jogo-Slavia, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and the Levant, Russia, Finland, Baltic Provinces, Poland and Ukraine, Pacific Ocean and Oceanica, Eastern Front, North America, United States, Mexico, Central America, Cuba, South America, Columbia, Venezuela, Brazil and Guiana, Argentina, Chili, Paraguay and Uruguay, Asia, China, Africa, and Australia. This is WWI history from Armistice Day to the Peace Treaty. The Treaty of Versailles was the most important of the peace treaties that brought World War I to an end. The Treaty ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919 in the Palace of Versailles, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which had directly led to the war. The other Central Powers on the German side signed separate treaties. Although the armistice, signed on 11 November 1918, ended the actual fighting, it took six months of Allied negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. The treaty was registered by the Secretariat of the League of Nations on 21 October 1919. Of the many provisions in the treaty, one of the most important and controversial required "Germany [to] accept the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage" during the war (the other members of the Central Powers signed treaties containing similar articles). This article, Article 231, later became known as the War Guilt clause. The treaty required Germany to disarm, make ample territorial concessions, and pay reparations to certain countries that had formed the Entente powers. In 1921 the total cost of these reparations was assessed at 132 billion gold marks (then $31.4 billion or £6.6 billion, roughly equivalent to US$442 billion or UK£284 billion in 2021). At the time economists, notably John Maynard Keynes (a British delegate to the Paris Peace Conference), predicted that the treaty was too harsh—a "Carthaginian peace"—and said the reparations figure was excessive and counter-productive, views that, since then, have been the subject of ongoing debate by historians and economists. The result of the competing and sometimes conflicting goals among the victors was a compromise that left no one satisfied, and, in particular, Germany was neither pacified nor conciliated, nor was it permanently weakened. The problems that arose from the treaty would lead to the Locarno Treaties, which improved relations between Germany and the other European powers, and the re-negotiation of the reparation system resulting in the Dawes Plan, the Young Plan, and the indefinite postponement of reparations at the Lausanne Conference of 1932. The treaty terms led to great resentment in Germany which powered the rise of the Nazi Party. Although it is often referred to as the "Versailles Conference", only the actual signing of the treaty took place at the historic palace. Most of the negotiations were in Paris, with the "Big Four" meetings taking place generally at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Quai d'Orsay. Condition: Fair.
Keywords: Great European War, First World War, World War I, Treaty of Versailles, Armistice, Germany, Central Powers, Entente Powers, Ratification, Self-Determination, Military Explosives, League of Nations, Allenby, Pershing, Douglas Haig
[Book #82286]
Price: $45.00