Treaty of Versailles

Negotiated at the Paris Peace Conference, the treaty came into force on 10 January 1920. Germany ceded Alsace-Lorraine to France and most of Greater Poland and Pomerelia to Poland; Danzig became a free city, and plebiscites were to decide Upper Silesia and parts of East Prussia. The colonies became League of Nations mandates, and the League's Covenant was part of the treaty. The Rhineland was demilitarised, the army was limited to 100,000 men with no tanks or aircraft, and Article 231 held Germany responsible for the war and its damage. Poland was represented by Ignacy Paderewski and Roman Dmowski.

In Germany the treaty was called a 'Diktat', and revising it became the rallying cry of the nationalists and of Hitler. The United States never ratified it. In the 1930s Germany broke one provision after another, from the remilitarisation of the Rhineland to its demands over Danzig and Pomerania.