New History Textbook (Chapter 4 & 5) 2005 version - Bakumatsu Films

members. Europeans had experienced the horror of the first total war in human history, since it was
on their soil that most of the battles were fought. Huge numbers of them were caught up in the
conflict, and the years of mutual slaughter came to haunt them later in numerous ways.
Japan, however, was able to join the ranks of the victors without making tremendous sacrifices.
Neither was this war one in which the U.S. invested all of its resources. But after World War I, the
voices of two nations separated by the Pacific Ocean — Japan and the U.S. — internationally
became more forceful.
64 The Treaty of Versailles and the World Situation after World War I
How were post-World War I settlements made?
The Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations
The Paris Peace Conference was held in 1919. As one of the five Great Powers (the U.S., Great
Britain, France, Japan and Italy), Japan sent a delegation to the conference, which produced the
Treaty of Versailles. The treaty stated that Germany would accept responsibility for the war, and
would lose all of its colonies and some of its European territory. The unreasonably steep reparations
Germany was forced to pay would end up crippling the nation financially and become one of the
causes of World War II.
At the Paris Peace Conference, U.S. President Wilson submitted his Fourteen Points (which
contained his proposal for an association of nations that would transcend national interests and work
toward world peace and international cooperation) as a basis for the negotiations. France and some
of the other victors opposed the Fourteen Points, presenting arguments totally divorced from
political reality. But since it was through American participation that the Allies were able to win the
war, Wilson’s proposal was accepted after extended negotiations. The League of Nations was
formed in 1920. However, since the U.S. did not become a member due to opposition from
Congress, the League never functioned with full effectiveness.
Independence Movements in Asia
After World War I, Asia too was the scene of independence movements, which arose amid a
growing trend toward ethnic self-determination. In India, Gandhi and Nehru, both of whom used
nonviolent methods to achieve their objectives, demanded autonomy from Great Britain, which
India had been promised. British suppression of the independence movement only served to
strengthen it.
In Japanese-controlled Korea, mourners at a funeral service in Seoul for the former king held on
March 1, 1919, staged a demonstration at which Korean independence was declared and marchers
shouted, “Independence for Korea!” This movement soon spread throughout Korea (the March
First Movement). At the time, the Government-General of Korea used military force to subdue the
demonstrators, but later shifted to more benign methods.
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