The Treaty of Versailles [ended WWI]

Of the many provisions in the treaty, one of the most important and controversial required Germany to accept responsibility for causing the war (along with Austria and Hungary, according to the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and the Treaty of Trianon) and, under the terms of articles 231–248 (later known as the War Guilt clauses), to disarm, make substantial territorial concessions and pay heavy reparations to certain countries that had formed the Entente powers. The total cost of these reparations was assessed at 132 billion Marks (then $31.4 billion, £6.6 billion) in 1921 which is roughly equivalent to US $442 billion and UK £217 billion in 2011, a sum that many economists at the time, notably John Maynard Keynes, deemed to be excessive and counterproductive and would have taken Germany until 1988 to pay.^[2][3] The final payments ended up being made on October 4, 2010,^[4] the 20th anniversary of German reunification, and some 92 years after the end of the war for which they were exacted.^[5] The Treaty was undermined by subsequent events starting as early as 1932 and was widely flouted by the mid-1930s.^[6]