In January 1919, following the defeat of the German-led Central Powers in World War I, delegates from the victorious Allied nations gathered in Paris to try to forge an enduring peace for the postwar world. The number and complexity of the issues confronting the Paris peacemakers in the wake of the deadliest and most disruptive war up to that time was daunting. The five separate treaties produced by the Peace Conference, and particularly the most famous one, the Treaty of Versailles with Germany, have been widely criticized over the years, primarily because they led to the rise of Nazi Germany and the Second World War a generation later. Nonetheless, faced with the overwhelming task of bringing order to a world shattered by four years of bitter fighting, the Paris delegates were convinced that they had fashioned a just and lasting peace.
