● Did the peace actually create new nations?

No, nations such as Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and others were

spawned from the ashes of the fallen empires. All the treaties did
was recognize them as legitimate.

● What was problematic about the peace talks?

The losers were not invited. The big four largely dictated all the
terms.

● How were war debts the cause of reparations? Explain.

Wars are expensive and throughout the war all the nations racked
up massive amounts of debt, at the end France and Britain
couldn’t pay without collapsing economically, so they instead
pinned it all on Germany and got them to pay for war reparations
that were used to pay off debt.

● Who could have saved Europe from the curse of reparations?

President Woodrow Wilson of the US.

● How did Woodrow Wilson abandon Germany?

Originally Woodrow Wilson wanted a ‘fair’ peace, where Germany

would not be thrown under the bus, but he relented, to make sure
that Germany was punished and the US debt repaid.

● How was self-determination betrayed?

It was not applied outside Europe, instead imperialism was

encouraged.

● In the end, how were the allies betrayed?

 The war was not a real victory for any body ‘it was an armistice for
20 years’ and did not ensure any kind of long term sustainability.

● Was the war regretted?

Yes, 10 million soldiers died in the war and millions more civilians.
It’s a tragedy, nobody came out unscathed, in fact most came out
crippled. The unprecedented violence brought about a whole new
wave of different issues among those who survived. They
searched for meaning in the violence, they glorified the dead, but it
does not change that they died, really for nothing.

● List reasons for how the First World War changed the world.

It ended the era of Empires and gave rise to the Nation-state. It

created many new states across Eastern Europe. It formed
national identities among the Dominions of the British
commonwealth. It resulted in the formation of the USSR and the
rise of the US as a global superpower.

● What negative message did the war leave?

It didn’t really solve the issues it started over, and left them
unresolved to be decided in wars fought to this day. But at the
same time it showed that war despite the losses was a viable way
to achieve your goals.