The Nomad and the Olive Branch

The First World War was one of the costliest wars if not the costliest war in the last two millennia. Both Allied and Central powers lost much in terms of manpower, military strength, production capability, and economic stability. [1] Given historical tensions between Germany and France dating back to the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the French leadership saw an opportunity in the end of the war to weaken Germany vis-à-vis the Versailles Treaty of 1919, the WWI postwar settlement. [2] The original stipulations of the Versailles Treaty were designed to weaken Germany militarily, politically, and economically to ensure that it was not strong enough to attack France or its neighbors. Such conditions included demilitarization of areas such as the Rhineland or the Saar Valley, limitations on the size of the German military, monetary reparations, and loss of territory. [3] British Prime Minister Lloyd George, American President Woodrow Wilson, and the new German Weimar government, among o