“The settlement ultimately failed to live up to its more noble ambitions and helped set the stage for a second even deadlier conflict 20 years later.”

IT WAS June 28, 1919. Envoys, statesmen and diplomats from the world’s leading powers had gathered in Versailles Palace’s famous Hall of Mirrors to ink the treaty that would formally end the First World War.

Exactly five years had passed since Austria-Hungary’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand had been assassinated in Sarajevo, the proverbial spark that triggered four years of bloody global conflict. Since that fateful day, Europe had undergone seismic changes: millions were dead, ancient dynasties were in ruins and political upheaval was sweeping the continent.

The treaty, which was the result of six months of peace talks in Paris, was intended to do more than just formally resolve hostilities between the Allies and Germany; its architects were confident it would lay the foundation for a more peaceful and just world. Such hopes would be dashed.

Not only did the settlement ultimately fail to live up to its noble ambitions, it helped set the stage for a second even deadlier conflict 20 years later.

To mark the 100^th anniversary of the Treaty of Versailles, here are 11 key facts about the agreement and its impact on history.

It was actually one of several treaties that ended WW1

The Treaty of Versailles only ended the war with Germany; separate accords concluded hostilities with the other Central Powers. The treaties of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919) and Trianon (1920) ended the Allies’ war with Austria and Hungary respectively, while the Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine (1919) established peace with Bulgaria. Then there was the Treaty of Sèvres (1920), which codified the partition of the Ottoman Empire.

The victors had vastly different visions for a post-war world

Although 27 nations sent delegates to Paris, it was clear which countries were guiding the peace process: Britain, France and the United States. And each had their own objectives in the negotiations that would follow.

France, which had been invaded by Germany in 1914, sought retribution, as well as protection from future aggression. To that end, French prime minister Georges Clemenceau hoped to strip its historic enemy of the ability to wage war. Recovering territory lost to Prussia in the war of 1870-71 was also on the agenda.

Britain was far less motivated by vengeance and pushed instead for a balance of power in Europe. In fact, Prime Minister David Lloyd George imagined that a rehabilitated Germany would serve as a key player in European geopolitics and act as a check on both the Bolsheviks and French.

America entered negotiations hoping for a new world order, as articulated by President Woodrow Wilson’s famous Fourteen Points. It’s goals included peace, stability, free trade and self-determination for Europe’s various ethnicities.

Lesser powers like Japan and Italy sought to expand their respective territories: Tokyo, which was eager to take its place among the great powers of the world, lobbied for control of Germany’s former Far East colonies, while Rome maneuvered to broaden its borders inside Europe.

The treaty lay the blame for the war solely on Germany

Germany, which was excluded from even attending the peace talks until May 7, was incensed to discover that it alone was to bear the responsibility for the outbreak of war in 1914. The treaty’s Article 231 all but ignored the role of other factors like Europe’s byzantine pre-war alliance system in bringing about the catastrophe. The so-called “War Guilt Clause” appalled Germans from all quarters. “We know the full brunt of hate that confronts us here,” said Ulrich Graf von Brockdorff-Rantzau, Berlin’s foreign minister when he arrived in Paris. “You demand from us to confess we were the only guilty party of war; such a confession in my mouth would be a lie.” The Germans lodged a formal protest and then withdrew from the talks. They were ignored.

It forced Germany to pay hefty reparations

As part of accepting blame for the war, Germany was also compelled to provide the victors, namely France, with financial compensation for damages and losses sustained in the conflict. A reparations commission was established that eventually pegged Berlin’s liability at 132 billion gold marks. That number was later reduced to 50 billion to be paid over 10-years beginning in 1921. Even then, Germany only gave up the equivalent an estimated 20 billion gold marks. Despite this, indignation in Germany over the issue of reparations was widespread, which many saw as ruinous to the national economy.

The German military was dramatically downsized

The treaty also stripped Germany of its once-mighty war machine. Under articles 160 through 163, the Weimar Republic would be allowed an army of no more than seven infantry and three cavalry divisions totalling no more than 100,000 men. No artillery heavier than 105 mm would be allowed either. Germany’s general staff was also to be abolished and restrictions were placed on the number of military academies allowed. There was also an outright ban on conscription. Berlin would be forced to abandon many of its border fortifications, particularly those on the frontier with France. The German navy was to be pared down to just 15,000 sailors, six “pre-dreadnaught” battleships, an equal number of light cruisers, a dozen destroyers and absolutely no submarines. The air force was to be disbanded entirely. The national armaments industry was also gutted. German factories were forbidden to produce chemical weapons, armoured vehicles or military aircraft.

Germany was forced to make huge territorial concessions

Many considered the territorial reductions imposed on Germany to be among the harshest provisions of the treaty. The country had to surrender 25,000 square miles of land, which was home to seven million citizens. All of the new regions it had acquired in the East from its 1918 peace settlement with Russia (the Brest-Litovsk Treaty) were to be seized. Berlin would also have to cede territory in Upper Silesia to the new independent state of Poland. Such would be the case for the region of Posen. East Prussia would be reduced in size and physically separated from greater Germany by a Polish Corridor that was to run through the territory of Pomerania to the Baltic Sea. Also, the port of Danzig would become a semi-autonomous city-state. In the west, Eupen-Malmedy, which was annexed by Germany in 1914, would be returned to Belgium. Germany would also have to surrender Alsace-Lorraine to France, which was famously captured during the 1870 Franco Prussian War. In addition, the coal-rich Saar would be administered by the Allies for 15 years.

It ended the German Empire

Berlin would also be forced to surrender the colonies it had spent the previous 50 years establishing in Africa and the Far East. France would claim Togoland and Cameroon. Belgium would take over Ruanda-Urundi. South Africa was granted control of German Southwest Africa and the British would administer German East Africa, although a small portion of that colony, what would later become Mozambique, was granted to Portugal. In the Pacific, Japan would take possession of Germany’s colonies in China and all of all of Kaiser’s island territories situated above the equator: the Marshall Islands, the Carolines, the Marianas and the Palau Islands. Below the equator, New Zealand was granted German Samoa while German New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago and Nauru would go to Australia.

The war would resume if Germany didn’t agree to all terms

The Allies gave Germany until June 23 to agree to the treaty. If Berlin refused, hostilities would resume within 24 hours. Britain, France, Belgium and the United States had hundreds of thousands of troops stationed in the Rhineland under terms of the 1918 Armistice. France was ready to commit its Eighth and Tenth armies, while the British occupation army had 11 divisions at its disposal. The United States had positioned a quarter of a million troops in the Rhineland, as well. German prime minister Philipp Scheidemann stepped down rather than sign. His successor, Gustav Bauer, made a last-ditch attempt to have some of the articles stricken from the accord, but his appeals were rejected. Berlin had no choice but to accept what many citizens of the new Weimar Republic considered to be a an Allied “diktat,” or harsh punishment.

It established a League of Nations

Of the more benign outcomes of the Treaty of Versailles was the establishment of the League of Nations, the first-ever world-wide organization committed to the goal of maintaining world peace. Convened on Jan. 10, 1920, the League was built on the principles of collective security, disarmament and conflict resolution through negotiation and arbitration. At its peak in 1935, 58 nations were members, but unfortunately, the League of Nations would be remembered more for its failures than its successes. Consider the fact that the United States, whose own President Wilson proposed its formation, refused to even join (Why? See below). Later, other members abandoned the League to pursue their own militaristic and expansionist foreign policies. Japan pulled out after being condemned for its 1931 invasion of Manchuria. Germany, admitted in 1926, withdrew just nine months after Hitler took power in 1933. And Italy ran afoul of the League for its 1935 invasion of Abyssinia. And with no standing army of its own, the League was dependent on member states to enforce its resolutions. But national self-interest frequently prevented the Allied powers from fully holding belligerent states to account. Most damning of all, the League ultimately failed to prevent the Second World War. Indeed, its very ineffectiveness made the outbreak of hostilities in 1939 more likely.

Reactions to the treaty were mixed

Although the treaty was largely popular among ordinary people in the Allied countries — particularly the punitive provisions levelled against Germany — a number of prominent individuals were less enthusiastic. One of the British delegates, future noted economist John Maynard Keynes, feared that the settlement was far too draconian. He compared it to the crippling settlement Rome imposed on Carthage after the Second Punic War. One of the chief South African envoys, General Jan Smuts, complained to the British prime minister how the treaty was being forced on Germany at the point of the bayonet. “What’s become of Wilson’s Fourteen Points?” he asked, referring to the U.S. president’s high-minded plan for a fair post-war world. Amazingly, few of Wilson’s own countrymen shared such a vision. The treaty, as well as the League of Nations, faced serious headwinds in the U.S. Congress, where a coalition of senators dubbed the “Irreconcilables” voted against ratifying. The holdouts were a mixed bag of nationalists, isolationists and partisan opponents of the Democratic occupant of the White House. Irish-Americans also opposed the treaty, as it seemed to protect British interests internationally. German-Americans naturally thought it unfair, as well. In fact, the United States would eventually hammer out its own peace treaties with the Central Powers in 1921. Then there were those among the victors who felt that Versailles didn’t go far enough in punishing Germany. Marshal Ferdinand Foch, the former supreme Allied commander, warned that despite the measures taken to strip the Weimar Republic of its territory and war-making powers, France’s historic foe would surely rise again. “It is an armistice for 20 years,” he reportedly complained.

It set the stage for World War Two

As mentioned, the treaty was reviled throughout Germany. The German admiral Ludwig von Reuter brazenly scuttled the impounded High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow days before the treaty was signed rather than see his country’s warships handed over to the British. German defiance didn’t end there. The government in Berlin began skirting the agreement’s disarmament provisions as early as 1920. Almost immediately, the army secretly reconstituted the general staff under the guise of something called the Truppenamt or ‘Troop Office.’ Similarly, German weapons manufacturing was resumed after being transferred to foreign states like Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands and even the Soviet Union. Most significantly, the treaty became a powerful symbol of resentment in post-war Germany that provided an opening for agitators and revolutionaries. Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany on a platform of grievance-based politics that singled out the Treaty of Versailles for particular scorn. “[It] was the greatest injustice and the most infamous maltreatment of a great nation in recorded history,” Hitler would say of the accord. “Because it was impossible for our nation to continue to exist in the future unless Germany was free of this stranglehold.”