It's 1919. Two months after armistice, world leaders are gathering in Paris to hammer out the peace. Everyone has demands. Prime Minister of France Georges Clemenceau wants retribution. Hardline British Prime Minister David Lloyd George was just voted in. Italian leader Orlando needs a port and faces Fascists back home. The Japanese want territories from China. American President Woodrow Wilson wants the League of Nations as he tries to ameliorate the vast conflicting demands from the world. When the German delegation is finally allowed to come, they are shocked by the peace treaty demands and the question remains whether the Germans will sign.
During the second week of May 1919, the recently arrived German delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference, convened in Paris after the end of the First World War, pore over their copies of the Treaty of Versailles, drawn up in the months preceding by representatives of their victorious enemies, and prepare to lodge their objections to what they considered to be unfairly harsh treatment. Presented with the treaty on May 7, 1919, the German delegation was given two weeks to examine the terms and submit their official comments in writing.
Margaret MacMillan on the Paris Peace Conference