The world war began in 1914; quick victories and a short war were expected. That certainly wasn't the case. What they experienced was a protracted world war that cost millions of lives, destroyed working lives, and sparked hatred for generations to come. Defeated Germany was then humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles and the conditions it demanded. The armistice was signed on November 11, 1918, officially ending the war until a peace treaty could be agreed upon and signed. The peace treaty was signed by Germany on June 28, 1919 at the Palace of Versailles. This peace treaty known as the Treaty of Versailles dealt exclusively with defeated Germany. When Germany signed the treaty, its army was ruined, the government was collapsing, and the people were exhausted. The four powers were all greatly affected by this war and thus intentions of revenge were in mind when creating the treaty. Germany had been defeated and the Treaty of Versailles marked the final touch to Germany's devastation. The Treaty of Versailles was accompanied by many territorial changes for Germany. In article 51: "The territories which were ceded to Germany in accordance with the preliminaries of peace signed at Versailles on February 26, 1871 and the Treaty of Frankfurt of May 10, 1871, are returned to French sovereignty from the date of the Armistice. of November 11, 1918. » I believe that section 89, although not mentioned in the pages of the Modern History Sourcebook, although very important, was the Polish Corridor; this piece of land ran straight through the middle of Germany, separating the rest of Germany from East Prussia, which seriously weakened Germany. East Prussia was a great source of money for Germany and the middle of the paper, first during inflation and then during the Great Depression. He promised to emerge from the economic crisis and reaffirm Germany's status as a world power.” (p. 806) The Treaty of Versailles was humiliating; this forced Germany to accept full responsibility for the war. The treaty also ordered that no German troops could be stationed in their industrial heartland; this limited the size of their army for the country; he confiscated foreign assets and forced Germany to pay crippling reparations. The Treaty of Versailles paved the way for the rise of Hitler and the Nazis, just as World War I did for the communist revolution in Russia. Works Cited http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1919versailles.html. Kishlansky, Mark, Patrick Geary and Patricia O'Brien. Pearson Custom Library: Western Civilization. Columbia College ed. Boston: Pearson, 2013. Print.