The Economic Consequences of the Peace

In 1919, John Maynard Keynes participated in the negotiations of World War I's armistice at the Versailles Peace Conference. A senior Treasury official with the British delegation, Keynes strongly disagreed with terms of reparation imposed on Germany, arguing that German impoverishment would threaten all of Europe. Indeed, the imposition of an economic burden that Germany could not pay led to the dismantling of the European market, famine, social unrest, and, ultimately, to World War II. Th...