Paris Peace Conference in 1919-1920 : Woodrow Wilson's Failure in Creating Peace

Abstract

The Paris Peace Conference in 1919–1920 was organized to draft a peace treaty after the end of the First World War. The Conference was held from January 12 to June 28, 1919 at Versailles Palace in the suburbs of Paris. A total of 32 countries attending the Conference were the Allies, who won the War. Among these nations were five great power nations including the United States, England, France, Italy, and Japan. Germany and her allies, who lost the war, did not attend the Conference. Woodrow Wilson, the American President, asked the Conference to implement the Fourteen Points, which were based upon "Peace without Victory," the concept announced to the American Congress on January 8, 1918. This concept was considered a basis for negotiations to reorder the world, allowing every nation to work closely with one another and to live together peacefully. The Conference attendees, however, focused on protecting their own nation's benefits, ignoring Wilson's principles except the one on establishing the League of Nations. Wilson was thus not successful in exercising his power in his capacity of the leader of a great power nation, which was equipped with a powerful military and stable economics to create sustainable peace.