Paris Peace Conference

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Bulgaria signed an armistice for cessation of hostilities on September 29, 1918; the Ottoman Empire followed on October 30.  Germany signed an armistice on November 11, 1918, following the abdication of the Kaiser.  Settlement talks began on January 18, 1919, and lasted until January 21, 1920, in a series of discussions known as the Paris Peace Conference.  The winning powers did not invite Russia to attend the conference, as it had previously withdrawn from the war under its new socialist leadership.  German leadership was excluded from the talks until their conclusion.  Georges Clemenceau, Prime Minister of France, David Lloyd George, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, and Vittorio Orlando, Prime Minister of Italy, better known as “The Big Four”, dominated these discussions.  Wilson introduced his Fourteen Points during the Paris Peace Talks, including the idea for an international governing body known as the League of Nations.  Clemenceau and Lloyd George, interested in protecting their own national interests, opposed many of Wilson's idealistic proposals.