Germany and the Treaty of Versailles
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Germany and the Treaty of Versailles
Germany had not been invited or told about the Peace Conference, which took place in Paris, January 1919. The Germans saw this as a 'diktat'. They had not been invited because England and France wanted to blame someone for the war, ie. Germany. So if Germany was not there, they could not defend themselves against the British and the French. However despite this, that was very unfair, as Germany was obviously a main subject in the matter, therefore they should have been allowed to share their judgements. Even if this didn't change the actual Treaty, it would have allowed Germany to try and convey their opinion rather than having it forced upon them and given only three weeks to comment on the vast amounts of peace clauses and having their objections largely ignored.
The Treaty was unfair in the sense that Germany was under the impression that the treaty would be based on Woodrow Wilson's 'Fourteen Points'. Many of the Points Wilson had included in his speech, were very much ignored when it came to writing up the Treaty which was very unfair on Germany as they had been mislead.
The point which stated open Diplomacy was ignored as the 'Big Three' (Britain, France and America) made all the decisions at Versailles...