956 Ch. 24 • The Elusive Search for Stability in the 1920s

The Big Four deciding the future of Europe, 1919. Left to right: Vittorio Orlando

of Italy, David Lloyd George of Great Britain, Georges Clemenceau of France, and

Woodrow Wilson of the United States.

governments. Fascist and other extreme nationalist groups (see Chapter

25), intolerant of those considered outsiders and committed to aggressive

territorial expansion, carried their violence into the streets. Many mem­

bers of these organizations were former soldiers who vowed to replace

democracies and republics with dictatorships. In Eastern Europe and the

Balkans, parliamentary rule survived only in Czechoslovakia. Moreover,

ethnic rivalries within nations, many inflamed by the Treaty of Versailles,

intensified social and political conflict. The post-war treaties could not

create new states that satisfied all nationalities.

The End of the War

Even before the representatives of the victorious Allies (along with those rep­

resenting a host of smaller states) met in Versailles in 1919 for a peace con­

ference, the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires had collapsed, rocked

by revolutions. Amid social and political turmoil, the leaders of the great

powers set out to reestablish peace in Europe. But the Treaty of Versailles

reflected the determination of Great Britain and France to punish Germany

for its role in unleashing the conflict. Representatives of the new German

Republic were forced to sign a clause essentially accepting full blame for the

outbreak of the war, and to agree to pay an enormous sum in war reparations

to the Allies, but the amount and schedule of German payments was estab­

lished only in 1921.