Thursday, August 15, 2013

What significant territorial changes resulted in Europe from World War I?

WWI profoundly changed the map of Europe. The Versailles Treaty led to Germany losing Alsace-Lorraine to France. Germany had owned this land since the Franco-Prussian War. Germany and Russia also lost territory in order to re-create the nation of Poland. This would be a major sticking point for both nations and this would help fuel WWII, as Hitler argued that he was trying to reclaim the ethnic Germans living in that region. The Dual-Monarchy of Austria-Hungary split in 1918, leading to the separate nations of Austria and Hungary. Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were also created out of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in an attempt to acknowledge the nationalistic aspirations of the Czechs and Slavs living in the region. Russia also lost the Baltic region of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as Poland, as the Versailles Treaty makers sought to acknowledge the nationalistic aspirations of as many Europeans as possible. This led to further Soviet mistrust of the West as the Soviet Union was not present at the Versailles Conference.

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