After the killing and the signing of the armistice on 11/11/1918 the reign of peace
was to be solidified by introducing the Paris peace conference early the next year. 32
countries had delegates in this massive discussion for the good of the world, but our focal
point is going to be on George Clemenceau, the French President; and Woodrow Wilson,
America's President. Both of these men had a common goal of peace, both world wide
and for Europe, but had radically different views on how to accomplish this. Germany,
being the first to actually stage an attack, was charged with starting the war and her
punishment was down to two major views: To have all participating countries take an
amount of responsibility for allowing the war to build up into what it was and not force
one country into poverty and collapse to pay your own bills, or to force heavy fines and
military penalties on Germany to pay for damages.
Albumen Cabinet Card of Woodrow Wilson head and sh...
President Woodrow Wilson and his war cabinet.
The final resting place of Woodrow Wilson at the W...Clemenceau, being from the most
damaged country, pushed for full fines and bills for damage to be paid for by Germany,
as well as admitting that they started the war. And Woodrow Wilson and the Americans
favored the shared responsibility view.
France had been beaten down by Germany in this war, and in fact it had gotten so
bad that a main part of Frances wartime philosophy was 'Make Germany Pay'. Because
of all the negative press surrounding the people's opinion on Germany taking it easy on
them would be disastrous, the people would not be happy. Also, since Germany has war
debt and reconstruction to do too, chances are Germany would have fined them as much
as they planned on fining Germany. But eventually Germany would pay off its debts, and
grow in power again, so...