Treaty of Versailles

Treaty of Versailles

Treaty of Peace between the Allied and Associated Powers and Germany
Cover of the English version
Signed	28 June 1919
Location	Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles in France
Effective	10 January 1920
Condition	Ratification by Germany and four Principal Allied Powers.
Signatories	Principal Allied and Associated Powers  United States  British Empire  France  Italy  Japan Other Allied Powers  Belgium  Bolivia  Brazil China  Cuba  Ecuador  Greece  Guatemala  Haiti The Hedjaz  Honduras  Liberia  Nicaragua  Panama  Peru  Poland  Portugal Roumania Serb-Croat-Slovene State  Siam  Czechoslovakia Uruguay Central Powers  Germany
Depositary	French Government
Languages	French and English
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The Treaty of Versailles (French: Traité de 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, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of World War I 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 forced Germany to disarm, make substantial 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 marks (then $31.4 billion or £6.6 billion, roughly equivalent to US $442 billion or UK £284 billion in 2017). At the time economists, notably John Maynard Keynes, 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 from several countries. On the other hand, prominent figures on the Allied side such as French Marshal Ferdinand Foch criticized the treaty for treating Germany too leniently.