World War I left behind a devastated landscape with over 30 million military casualties, decimated cities, and millions more civilians caught in the carnage. When the guns finally fell silent on November 11, 1918, the world exhaled, but the peace that everybody wanted didn't come easily.

It would take months of bitter negotiations at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference to settle the terms. And presiding over it all were three of the most powerful men of the time: French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, and US President Woodrow Wilson (D-New Jersey). Wilson was also the first sitting American president to cross the Atlantic on official business.

Wilson came armed with a bold, idealistic vision to reshape Europe through diplomacy, democracy, and his cornerstone idea was to lay the foundations for a League of Nations. But Clemenceau and Lloyd George, representing nations battered by years of trench warfare and millions of dead soldiers, were not interested in idealism. They wanted retribution.

Thus, the Treaty of Versailles was signed in the opulent Palace of Versailles, forged in tension and resentment.

Germany and the other defeated Central Powers were not even allowed a seat at the negotiating table. By the time the treaty was made public, they found themselves stripped of dignity and power. Germany lost 10% of its land, its military was reduced to a shell, and it was forced to give up all overseas colonies. Allied forces occupied the Rhineland, and perhaps most insultingly of all, Germany was forced to accept full blame for the war.

That infamous 'War Guilt Clause' in article 231 declared:

"Germany accepts the responsibility … for causing all the loss and damage … as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies."

Followed by a staggering $32 billion in reparations, equivalent to over half a trillion dollars in modern terms.

It was not only a defeat.

It was a shame.

Humiliation.

And for many Germans, it was intolerable.

From peace to powder keg

At the heart of Wilson's vision was the League of Nations, as in the 14th of his famous 'Fourteen Points':

"A general association of nations must be formed … for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity…"

Wilson knew that the newly redrawn map of Europe was a fragile puzzle. Ancient empires, German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian, had collapsed. In their place rose smaller, vulnerable states. Wilson hoped that with democratic principles and the League's oversight, peace could hold.

But when he returned to United States, his dream unraveled.

A bloc of Republican US senators known as 'the Irreconcilables' rejected the League entirely, fearing it would entangle the USA in endless European wars. Republicans won control of both houses of congress in the 1918 midterm elections as American voters rejected Wilson's agenda.

Wilson campaigned desperately for ratification, but suffered a devastating stroke in Pueblo, Colorado, during his cross-country tour. The administration under President Warren Harding was characterized by isolationism. The US stayed out. The League was born, but without its most powerful advocate.

For decades, historians have debated whether the Treaty of Versailles was intended to secure a lasting peace or instead plant the seeds of World War II.

The treaty was deeply unpopular and served as a powerful symbol of Allied injustice. But it did not guarantee Hitler's rise or another global war. To him, the more decisive trigger was not the treaty itself, but what came after: the global economic collapse of the Great Depression and America's withdrawal from global leadership.

The economic collapse and rise of extremism

Germany's real breaking point was not Versailles. It was 1929. The stock market crash triggered a worldwide depression. The US banks, which had been propping up Germany's fragile economy with loans, pulled out.

Businesses collapsed. Unemployment soared. Starvation loomed.

In this bleak vacuum, democracy lost its hold, and fascism took root.

Hitler's message was a toxic mix of racial superiority, conspiracy theories, and promises of restored greatness, which found fertile ground in a desperate, disillusioned Germany.

So, did the Treaty of Versailles cause World War II?

Perhaps, not by itself.

But it did lay down the tinder.

And when the global economy caught fire, the flames of war roared back to life.