- 04 Apr, 2021
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Paris Peace Conference / World War I
Take on the role of a journalist for the Times of London who has just returned from the Paris Peace Conference. You are telling your readers not only about the Conference, but more importantly, you are telling them about what you saw while you were on the continent and, in a way, trying to explain why this all happened. You are, in essence, attempting to explain why the war started after having witnessed first-hand what the cost of the war has been.
This essay gives you a chance to do two things. You are explaining what brought about WorldWar I while at the same time examining its impact and in essence, asking thequestion, wasitall worth it.World War Iwas the most horrific experience Europe could remember to that point. It was not only physically and economically devastating, but psychologically destructive as well. Nobody had expected such a long, drawn out war and nobody expected such an incredibly high human cost. In 1914, nobody expected the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the German Empire, and the Ottoman Empire to be swept away, no one really expected the downfall and slaughter of the tsar and his family in Russia, nobody foresaw the physical devastation to France and Belgium. The two remaining Great Powers, Great Britain and France, who themselves had been badly weakened in this war had to, following the retreat of the United States into the isolationism of the 1920s, once again assume the leadership of Europe,and in reality, the world. But it was a different Great Britain and France, it was a Great Britain and France whose leaders were motivated by the fear of another war and who were willing to sacrifice anything to avoid it. Part of this essay is to lay the foundations that will help us to explain and understand this fear.