The terms of the partition of Germany by the four major powers of the Entente were soon announced, which caused great repercussions in Europe and even around the world.

First of all, the United States and Italy expressed their dissatisfaction with this treatment, and condemned the four great powers of the Entente for ignoring the interests of the other victorious powers, which violated and jeopardized the intention of the Entente to form itself.

But the opposition of these two countries is nothing more than a clown for the four major powers of the agreement countries, neither Italy nor the United States has the strength to subvert the rule of the four great powers at this time.

The British and French were only the armies of Austria-Hungary moving on the border, which immediately made the Italians shut up in fright, and never said anything against the four great powers again.

The rest of the United States, although not afraid of the threat of Britain and France, also had nothing to do with the high prestige of Britain and France in Europe.

It is no exaggeration to say that if Britain and France firmly excluded the United States from the victorious powers, the United States would have no choice but to condemn and condemn it in words.

But verbal condemnation is the weakest, and to put it bluntly, it is only the impotent wail of the weak.

But as long as they have the strength to put it into action, no one will choose to condemn this way of forcibly saving face.

Of course, although there is no means of resistance militarily, this does not mean that the Americans do not have diplomatic resistance.

In order to resist the behavior of the four great powers in uniting like this, US President Wilson put forward his own theory on the formation of an international alliance and proposed the establishment of an international alliance that could mediate international disputes and maintain world peace.

Such an alliance of nations is a good thing for small and medium-sized countries, because at present they have no means of resistance in the face of the great powers.

But the problem is that if the League of Nations does not have the support of strong countries, it is only a game between small and medium-sized countries, it is also equivalent to empty talk and has no binding force on the countries of the great powers.

In order to promote the establishment of the League of Nations, US President Wilson first approached the Italian Prime Minister and proposed that the United States and Italy jointly form an League of Nations to maintain the new world order.

Although the Italians are very impressed by this, Italy also understands that the world order is not decided by the United States, but by Britain and France.

Sure enough, after President Wilson proposed the League of Nations, the four major powers of the Entente quickly came up with countermeasures, openly declaring at the Paris Peace Conference that they would expand the Entente and form a world alliance.

The countermeasures of the four great powers were entirely aimed at the League of Nations, because apart from the different names, the usefulness, organization and even purpose of the World League and the League of Nations were exactly the same, but the initiating countries were different.

Compared with the United States, the four major powers of the Entente were clearly more popular in Europe. Based on Britain and France, it also represents the four major powers of the Entente and the old European powers.

And the blessing of Russia and Australasia, coupled with the recent defeat of Germany and Austria-Hungary, made the four major powers of the agreement the most powerful group in Europe and even the world, even if the United States and Italy combined, could not shake the slightest.

On March 7, 1918, a peace treaty concerning the limitation of Germany was issued. The peace treaty consisted of 19 major clauses and 344 minor clauses, which imposed restrictions on Germany in various respects.

German Foreign Minister Blankdorf led a German delegation at the Palace of Versailles to sign the peace treaty with the Allied delegations, which was also called the Treaty of Versailles or the Peace of Paris because it was signed at the Palace of Versailles.

Of course, the signing of the peace treaty did not go so smoothly. When Germany learned of the details of the peace treaty, mass demonstrations broke out to call on the government to reject the treaty.

The German government also rejected the treaty, but could not resist the determination of the Entente.

Even the French representative Clemenceau declared bluntly: "The attitude of the Germans can only be to accept or reject this treaty completely." If there is no reply within five days, or if they choose to refuse altogether, the Entente will declare an end to the armistice and will enforce all of the above terms by force. ”

This is a threat above board, and if the Germans do not agree to this draconian clause, then let the war decide who should listen to whom.

Faced with tremendous pressure from France and the Entente, the German government was in a hurry.

Because Wilhelm II had taken refuge in the Netherlands, it was Hindenburg and the junta who decided everything.

But the prestige of the military junta in Germany had diminished considerably, and even the major states of South Germany had become de facto independent.

Agreeing or refusing is not a good thing for the current German government.

On the last day of the five-day deadline given by the French representative Clemenceau, the German government finally informed the peace conference that it was willing to sign the peace treaty.

However, the German government also has its own demands, and Germany does not recognize that the German government and people should bear the responsibility for the war, and opposes Germany as the sole culprit of this super-war.

After all, it was not Germany that was the first to declare war, Germany only fulfilled its obligations to its allies, how could it become the culprit of this war?

But the designation of the Germans as the main culprits of the war was actually one of the goals of the French.

Only by establishing the Germans as the main culprits of this war can France justifiably oppress Germany.

Thus, Clemenceau rejected Germany's demands and stated that the Entente would not accept any concessions or modifications to the peace treaty.

If the Germans could not sign the treaty within two days, then the Entente troops would attack Germany again.

No matter how much confidence the Germans had before the war, at this moment, the indescribable truth of the defeated army made the Germans truly understand.

Under pressure from both inside and outside the country, the German government finally announced its unconditional acceptance of the full contents of the peace treaty, which it signed the next day.

Although the trend of history was very different, the Germans still ceded nearly one-eighth of their territory and reduced their population by a tenth.

Poland, which was supposed to be independent in history, was completely annexed by Russia, which at that time was still under the control of a bourgeois government with a constitutional monarchy, and in the eyes of European countries, it was its own.

If the Workers' League had been in power, the attitude of the Entente would have been very different. First of all, Britain and Australasia will not support Russia, and whether the Franco-Russian alliance can be maintained is also a question.

Under the guard of many countries, it would be good for Russia to hold on to its territory, let alone annex such a large Poland.

The annexation of the Polish Corridor to Poland led to the fact that Russia did not take East Prussia, but turned East Prussia into a German enclave.

It is worth mentioning that in the treaties restricting Germany, the results of the game between the four major powers of the Entente can also be seen.

The Entente imposed a number of restrictions on Germany's military strength, changing the German military service system and limiting the total number of German armies to 150,000 and German soldiers to serve for no more than two years.

The Treaty also imposed a number of restrictions on the size and number of German navies, allowing Germany to have a maximum of 6 cruisers and smaller combat warships, but no more than 15.

Advanced offensive weapons such as airplanes and submarines, as well as tanks, artillery and machine guns, were not allowed to be owned and produced by the German army.

The west of the Rhine was a military exclusion zone, and no German troops were allowed to enter. Military installations within 50 km east of the Rhine must be completely dismantled.

Basically all German military installations were to be dismantled, with the exception of some areas, such as those on the Russian border.

Ostensibly these regions are on the defensive side of the workers' union of the Moscow region, but in fact they are also on guard against the Russian government.

After all, after Russia's annexation of Poland, Germany alone or Austria-Hungary could not stop Russia's expansion at all.

If a little German military power was not retained, East Prussia would sooner or later be annexed by Russia, and the Rhine region on the Western Front would be encroached upon by the French sooner or later.

There was a big problem for Germany after the defeat, and that was that Germany lost not only a large part of its territory and population, but also advanced industry and all overseas markets.

According to one of the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, the victorious powers were to export goods to or from Germany without any prohibition or restriction, foreign warships and merchant ships were free to enter and leave the Kiel Canal and all canals in Germany, and all expenses of the Allied troops stationed in Germany were to be paid by the German Government.

This also means that Germany will become a dumping ground for the industrial products of the Entente countries, which is not a good thing for the development of German industry.

The inability to impose restrictions on foreign industrial goods means that Germany has lost the ability to collect tariffs.

The absence of tariff restrictions, coupled with the deprivation of German industry by the victorious powers, had no hope of recovering in a short time.

This also meant that Germany was about to usher in a long period of darkness, because the exploitation of Germany by the Entente could not be stopped on its own initiative.

It can be seen from this complete Treaty of Versailles that this was not a pact for peace, not a plundering pact that frantically deprived the defeated countries.

After the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, British Prime Minister Lloyd George did not smile, but said to Clemenceau with a worried face: "You can take away all the German colonies, reduce his army to only enough strength to build a police force, and reduce his navy to the status of a fifth-class country, but all this will be meaningless." If Germany did not consider the peace treaty fair, it would find a way to retaliate against the victors. ”

It is a pity that such advanced words were not taken seriously by Clemenceau, but were ridiculed by Clemenceau, believing that the dignified British Empire was already afraid of the defeated Germany, and how could there be a reason in the world that the victorious country was afraid of the defeated country?

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(End of chapter)