European History

Introduction

The end of World War I saw the European combatant nations exhausted, an entire generation of young men dead on the battlefield, and political conditions vastly changed from those before the war. The German, Austrian and Russian monarchies had been driven from power and replaced with democratic or revolutionary governments, and many European ethnic groups which had been subject to these three states seized the chance to obtain independence. It was against this background that the victorious powers attempted to bring permanent peace to Europe. The victors of the war were quick to blame Germany for starting the war and resolved to punish her, and this is exactly what took place at the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.