What did the peace makers want? And did they get it?

The main result was the Treaty of Versailles with Germany, which in section 231 laid the guilt for the war on "the aggression of Germany and her allies". This provision proved humiliating for Germany and set the stage for the expensive reparations Germany was intended to pay (it paid only a small portion before reparations ended in 1931). The five major powers (France, Britain, Italy, Japan and the United States) controlled the Conference. The "Big Four" were French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, US President Woodrow Wilson, and Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando. They met informally 145 times and made all the major decisions, which were then ratified.[1] The conference began on 18 January 1919. With respect to its end date, Professor Michael Neiberg has noted "Although the senior statesmen stopped working personally on the conference in June 1919, the formal peace process did not really end until July 1923, when the Treaty of Lausanne was signed"

Explanation:

The peacemakers knew their main responsibility was to integrate Germany into an international framework permitting it appropriate power and influence without overwhelming its neighbours. They hoped a democratic Germany, accepting its defeat, would concede that the settlement was just and execute the treaty. Yet in November 1918, with clear German victory in the east and its troops still occupying Northern France and Belgium, defeat was a difficult concept to grasp and it is arguable that no treaty based on such a premise would ever have been acceptable to Germany, even had the Allies been more amenable to negotiation.

Britain and France were left to execute a settlement that the Americans had heavily influenced but now reneged upon. Britain favoured modifying the terms in the hope of reconciling Germany, France preferred rigid enforcement to nullify German power. As a result they veered between conciliation and coercion, effectively stymieing both policies, contributing, in part, to an outcome in 1939 that neither wanted. Yet the responsibility for this new catastrophe cannot be attributed to the peacemakers alone as they sought to remedy the ills that drove Europe to war in 1914. The settlements they reached were not perfect and contained potential seeds of further conflict but also offered the hope for a better future. Lloyd George, in October 1922, was the last of the Four to leave office. Much would depend on how their successors interpreted and implemented their legacy