Versailles, Treaty of

Peace treaty after World War I between the Allies (except the USA and China) and Germany, signed on 28 June 1919. It established the League of Nations, an international organization intended to solve disputes by arbitration. Germany surrendered Alsace-Lorraine to France, and large areas in the east to Poland, and made smaller cessions to Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Belgium, and Denmark. The Rhineland was demilitarized, German rearmament was restricted, and Germany agreed to pay reparations for war damage. The treaty was never ratified by the USA, which signed separate treaties with Germany and Austria in 1921. The terms of Versailles and its reshaping of Europe contributed to the outbreak of World War II.