Hello and welcome to a History of Europe, Gie Battles podcast.

My name is Carla Rylett, and today I'll be continuing the story of the First World War.

This is the 19th and the final part on our series on World War I, the Treaty of Versailles.

In previous weeks, I've talked about the fighting in World War I.

Late in 1918, one by one, the central powers gave up the fight.

And finally, on the 11th October, 1918, a German delegation signed the armistice agreement to end the Great War.

Delegates for a peace conference began to assemble in Paris at the end of 1918.

Negotiations were dominated by the British and French Prime Ministers, David Lydge George and Georges Clemenceau, and the American

President Woodrow Wilson. The defeated central powers were subsequently presented with

their terms.

The French and Americans, in particular, however, had different priorities.

Wilson sought to create a new world order under the auspices of the League of Nations,

with the guiding principle of self-determination.

The main motivation of the French, meanwhile, was to make sure that Germany was so weakened that it could never threaten her borders again.

The peace agreed at Paris consisted of a group of distinct treaties, but the main concern of the delegates was the settlement with Germany, embodied in the Treaty of Versailles, signed in June 1919.

The French demurreder not only the return of Alsace-Lorraine, but also the acquisition of the Colerich-Sar Basin.

German territories on the left bank of the river, Clemenceau argued, should be detached altogether from Germany to create an autonomous state or group of states under French protection to cover the frontier.

This, the British would not accept, arguing that such a protectorate would be like Alsace Lorraine, a persistent source of friction.

They agreed only to the demilitarisation of the left bank and of the right bank to a depth of 40 miles,

with an Allied military presence pending the full payment of reparations.

Ownership of the Saar Coalfields was to pass to France, but was to be administered by the League of Nations for 15 years when its status would be settled by a plebiscite.

Germany's eastern frontiers presented a far greater problem, the counterweight on which France had relied before 1914, the Russian Empire had vanished.

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