• One of the chief reasons for the start of World War I was the assassination of Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand and Crown Princess Sophia of Austria. They were on a state visit in Yugoslavia on June 29, 1914 when they were gunned down in the streets of Sarajewo by The Black Hand, a Serbian terrorist group that wanted Serbia to regain independent statehood. The conflict caused by the murders could not be resolved. The culprits were protected by their government and were not handed over to Austria’s court of law. The Empire of Germany and its army came to the aid of the Austrians, as did Turkey and Bulgaria. Russia declared herself Serbia’s ally. They were joined by the French and the British. An agreement could not be reached between the two groups of allies, so they declared war on each other.
  
  
• WW I started on August 2, 1914. Germany and Austria were beaten into the ground. Austria’s army surrendered on November 4, 1918. Kaiser Karl I abdicated and went into exile in Switzerland. In order to avoid a civil war between the monarchists and the anti-monarchists, Field Marshall Paul von Hindenburg persuaded Kaiser Wilhelm II to abdicate and to go into exile. The entire Austrian and German aristocracies were forced to abdicate. Kaiser Wilhelm II left Germany on November 9, 1918 and found refuge in neighbouring Holland, where he died in 1941.
  
  
• The war officially ended with the Armistice on November 11, 1918 at 11 a.m. Only Germany had to sign an agreement of surrender and admit that they started the war. This would later be acknowledged as blackmail. If they had refused to sign, they would have been attacked again within 48 hours.
  
  
• US President Woodrow Wilson had been developing his ‘14 Point’ peace agreement since early 1918. On several occasions he presented it to the other Allies, but they rejected it every time – even at the January 18, 1919 Paris Peace Conference. After many revisions it was finally approved. The final draft of the Treaty of Versailles was presented to Germany on June 28, 1919. It was co-signed by Wilson, French Premier Georges Clemenceau, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, and Italian Premier Vittorio Orlando. A special War Guilt clause required Germany to accept full blame for starting the war and causing damage to the Allied and Associated Governments. This treaty was signed in the Mirrored Room of Infinity in the castle at Versailles, France. If Germany had refused to sign, it would have faced the resumption of hostilities and a naval blockade by the Allies.
  
  
• The German people suffered tremendous hardships because of this treaty. There was great unemployment. Struggling farmers were forced to sell their homes and land to unscrupulous businessmen for pittances. More than 17,000 German farmers committed suicide because they could not feed their families.
  
  
  
• The treaty demanded that Germany give up all its colonies in Africa: Cameroon and German East Africa (now Tanzania), Togo and German South Africa (now Namibia), as well as some of its homeland provinces: parts of East Prussia, parts of Silesia, Alsace Lorraine, and the Saargebiet (Province of Saar). The large German cities of Koblenz, Cologne and Mainz, and the Saargebiet were occupied by the French for fifteen years. All coal, raw, and manufactured materials from these areas became the property of the French government. All trading laws were revoked.
  
  
• The treaty demanded billions of dollars of war reparation payments to be made over 70 years, until 1988. At the time of signing, there was no money in the state bank, so all the goods and harvested products that Germany produced were allocated to pay this debt. This left the German people with nothing to live on. They starved to death by the thousands. According to coroner’s reports, two of Willi’s family members starved to death: his Grandfather Autchie in 1919 and his Uncle Fiete in 1920.
  
  
• One of the first things Adolf Hitler did after he came to power was to declare the signature on the Treaty of Versailles invalid. He also retracted the claim that Germany started the war. These two measures probably saved the German population from extinction.
  
  
• Many historians agree that the Treaty of Versailles was unfair to a defeated nation and too harsh on the people of Germany. The Treaty of Versailles is considered to be the basis of World War II.