Professional Custom Accounting: Allies in the secret Treaty of London.
· World War I was settled by the victors at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.
· Two dozen nations sent delegations and there were many nongovernmental groups, but the defeated powers were not invited.
· The “Big Four,” who made all the major decisions, were President Woodrow Wilson of the United States, Prime Minister David Lloyd George of Great Britain, George Clemenceau of France, and of least importance, Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando.
· Each major power had its own agenda coming to the Conference and not every aim was represented in the final treaties.
· The Americans’ vision was set out in Wilson’s Fourteen Points, which emphasized free trade, self-determination, and the founding of a League of Nations to support territorial and political independence of member nations.
· British aims at the conference were focused on securing France, settling territorial disputes, and maintaining their colonial holdings.
· Having witnessed two German attacks on French soil in the last 40 years, France’s main concern was to ensure Germany would not be able to attack them again, so they pushed to weaken Germany militarily, strategically, and economically.
· Italy was motivated by gaining the territories promised by the Allies in the secret Treaty of London.
