Chapter 23: Section 4

About 5 million Allied soldiers and 3.5 million soldiers from Central Powers died in combat.

More than 20 million soldiers on both sides were wounded.

In France, 90% of young healthy men were killed or wounded.

116,000 U.S. troops died, and about 200,000 wounded.

The war brought financial disaster to many parts of Europe.

Factories and farms were left in ruins - severe food shortages occurred.

$30 billion dollars worth of property was destroyed.

Allies spent $145 billion on the war effort, and the Central Powers had spent $63 billion.

France and Britain had borrowed large amounts of money to fight the war and were deeply in debt.

1918: Worldwide epidemic of influenza broke out.

Over 2 years it killed approximately 30 million people.

Started at an army training camp in Kansas.

Half of the Americans who died at this time died from influenza.

State and local governments tried to stop the spread of the disease.

Quarantines, public gatherings and school were banned

800,000 Americans were dead by the time the epidemic ended in 1919.

Wilson's Fourteen Points ( vision for a post war world).

Specific proposal for post war peace: settled national border disputes , military cutbacks, lower tariffs and banned secret agreements between nations.

Creation of the League of Nations: international assembly of nations to work together to settle international disputes and encourage democracy.

European leaders disagreed with vision and wanted to punish Germany for its role in the war.

Europe wanted to prevent Germany from ever becoming a world power again.

Paris Peace Conference held at the palace of Versailles outside of Paris.

The Big Four: President Wilson, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, French premier Georges Clemenceau, and Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando took control of the conference.

no representatives from Russia or the Central Power's attended.

Many Allied leaders wanted Germany to take complete blame for the war and the damage it caused.

Reparations: payments for war damage , were set at $33 billion.

France and other Allies wanted to take control of large parts of German territory.

Wilson reluctantly agreed to treaty which was the peace settlement of World War I and established the League of Nations.

Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia became independent countries.

Poland was restored as a nation.

The Central Powers turned over their colonies to the League of Nations;

The U.S. Constitution says that treaties must be ratified by at least 2/3s of the members of Senate.

Republican senator Henry Cabot Lodge wanted the winners to set the terms of peace.

Republicans insisted on changes to the treaty before they would ratify it.

The fear was the League of Nations would have the power to force the U.S. to send troops ato war based on the decisions they made.

Wilson would not compromise and insisted that the treaty be ratified exactly as it was written.

November 19, 1919 The Treaty of Versailles was defeated in the Senate.

The U.S. signed a separate peace treaty and did not join the League of Nations.