ABSTRACT
The text presents the principles governing the Versailles order, its implementation, and the factors that weakened it, including numerous problems inherent in the precepts of this new order. Despite the noble objective of ensuring durable and just peace for Europe and the world that guided the most influential participants of the Paris Peace Conference, the Versailles order proved fragile and, in many respects, entirely disappointed the hopes it had engendered. This was the case because Russia and Germany did not take part in designing the system, nor did they accept it. In addition, the US did not support it. The two other powers that should have upheld the Versailles order, Great Britain and France, failed to agree on the matter. The Locarno Treaties (1925) were the lynchpin in toppling the Versailles order, because they redirected Germany’s revisionist activity towards its eastern neighbours. After Hitler’s assumption of power, the Versailles order lost its importance for good. In the long term, the beneficiaries of the Versailles order were the Central and Eastern European countries, which, in the period 1917–1919, gained or regained independence after the breakup of the multinational empires of Russia and Austria-Hungary and the defeat of Germany.
