22 - Drafting the peace

Summary

Peace treaties needed to be established that, on the one hand, would satisfy the war aims of the victors, but that, on the other, would also guarantee a long-lasting peace and prevent further wars, especially those of the magnitude of the war of 1914 to 1918. The Paris Peace Conference produced five peace treaties: with Germany, in Versailles; with Austria, in Saint-Germain-en-Laye; with Bulgaria, in Neuilly; with Hungary, at the Trianon; and with Turkey, in Sèvres. The First World War and the treaties create a greater re-orientation and a long-term potential for conflict in those areas that until 1918 had constituted the Ottoman Empire. The treaties were at least attempts to come to terms with the traumatic experience of the First World War, using the tools of diplomacy in the service of achieving strategic objectives.