okay so World War one is over and as much of Europe has been reduced to a smoking pile of rubble the powers involved in the war have to figure out a peace settlement a settlement which as it turns out was far from peaceful so let's talk about it and if you're ready to get them brain cow's milk self-determination style so in order to understand the Versailles Peace conference you really have to understand that the Victorious Powers did not at all agree on how peace should be administered and the big three involved in this tension were the United States Great Britain and France and let's begin with the United States so despite the fact that the U.S military played a comparatively small role in the victory of World War One U.S President Woodrow Wilson played a comparatively large role in the peace settlement and the words you need to associate with Wilson's vision for European peace is idealist Wilson really wanted to create a perfect world in which nations would no longer go to war with each other which as we'll see was a little uh idealist and if you liked that joke and let's be honest how could you not then you'll love my AP Euro review pack which does everything you need to get an A in your class and a five on your exam in May Link in description now in order to guide the peace settlement according to his vision Wilson presented what he called the 14 points which were to guide the administration of Peace the 14 points included a provision for the reduction of arms among nations open diplomatic relationships rather than secretive treaties and most important of all the right of self-determination among nations this idea hit at the heart of long-standing Imperial traditions of European power he said no one else gets to determine the nation's future except that Nation themselves at which point everyone living in Asia Africa and the Middle East was like say what now and all the European Imperial Powers were like say what now and maybe the most ambitious provision of the 14 points was the creation of a League of Nations which will be an international body devoted to the prevention of War Now spoiler alert the League of Nations was indeed formed but it was doomed from the beginning much to Wilson Chagrin the United States didn't even join the United States Senate which was responsible for ratifying such treaties squarely voted no because they feared that a binding agreement like that would drag the U.S into a war without Congressional approval add to that Germany and Russia didn't participate in the league either and therefore the league really could not succeed but I get ahead of myself we're talking about tensions at the peace come so that was Wilson's idealism but apparently Britain and France were not smelling what Wilson was stepping in you know what I mean Britain's new Prime Minister David Lloyd George won his office by campaigning on a platform to punish Germany for the war and he won so you know got to punish German Francis premieres George Clemens so likewise wanted to punish Germany for all the destruction in France and his main goal was to uphold the National Security of France against future German aggression to that end Clement so pushed for Germany to be demilitarized for them to pay reparations for the war and to create a geographic buffer zone in the Rhineland to prevent Germany from ever attacking France again Woodrow Wilson heard all this and he was like guys this is not the way to peace which Britain and France responded shut up Woodrow go sit in the corner and eat your happy meal that's what they said and further adding tension to the mix was the strained relationship with Russia remember they had dropped out of the war to have themselves a Communist Revolution and now that they were very much communist Western European powers distrusted as a result the powers at the peace table bolstered the state's neighboring Russia like Poland and Czechoslovakia he States along with other states like Hungary and Yugoslavia became known as Democratic successor States because they were newly formed out of the rubble of larger Empires the point is these states were enlarged and strengthened at Germany and Russia's expense and that caused a great deal more attention Okay now there were several different treaties signed at the peace conference but the one we want to focus on is the peace treaty with German there are two very important Provisions in this treaty that you got to remember first was the war Guild clause which placed the entire blame for the war on Germany and Austria two but mostly on Germany and the reason that Clause is significant is because it humiliated and defeated Germany on the world stage and was precisely that humiliation that's going to give rise to Fascism in the decades after the war and later you know World War II the second part of the treaty you need to remember is the provision as I mentioned earlier for Germany to pay reparations for the Damage Done during the War this also is going to create a significant cause for World War II because the amount of money Germany is going to be forced to pay will end up ruining them economically now these two problems within the treaty along with the mandated German demilitarization and land sessions would make it very difficult for the new post-war government known as the Weimar Republic to Florida and despite some early flourishing the Weimar began to crumble in the 1930s but we'll say that story for another video now finally we need to talk about the actions of the League of Nations and their establishment of the mandate system first you have to understand that the Treaty of Versailles essentially redrew the map of Europe especially Eastern Europe the Russian Empire lost significant territory in the austro-hungarian Empire disappeared entirely as did the Ottoman and what's more several of the new borders drawn for the states that emerged from these broken down Empires were drawn by the Victorious powers of the war with precisely no consideration for the ethnic minorities who lived in them in some cases borders were drawn to split a unified ethnic people and in other cases borders were closed around rival ethnic groups and all of that is going to cause a great deal of trouble but back to the League of Nations and the mandates this in order to gain support for their cause the allied powers in the war promised several Arab Nations ruled by the Ottomans that they would recognize their independence but those European powers have been building worldwide Empires for centuries at that point and the itch to control other people was too tempting not to scream and add to that the prodigious amount of oil under the Sands of those middle eastern states and the opportunity was just too tempting so under the authority of the League of Nations France took control of Lebanon and Syria while Britain took control of Iraq and Palestine you know technically France and Britain weren't colonizing these nations they were just mandates administered by these countries for the League of Nations but you know if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck it's probably imperialism Okay click here to keep reviewing for Unit 8 of AP European History and click here to grab my AP Euro review pack which does everything you need to get an A in your class and a five on your exam inmate I'll catch you on the flip-flop I'm Laurent