Western Front (World War I) The war along the Western Front led the German government and its allies to sue for peace in spite of German success elsewhere. As a result, the terms of the peace were dictated by France, Britain and the United States, during the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. The result was the Treaty of Versailles, signed in June 1919 by a delegation of the new German government. The terms of the treaty constrained Germany as an economic and military power. The Versailles treaty returned the border provinces of Alsace-Lorraine to France, thus limiting the coal required by German industry. The Saar, which
French Army in World War I 1870, and later struggled with France over mineral-rich Morocco. Another cause of World War I was growing militarism which led to an arms race between the powers. As a result of the arms race, all European powers were ready for war and had time tables that would send millions of reserves into combat in a matter of days. France was bound by treaty to defend Russia. Austria–Hungary had declared war on Serbia due to the Black Hand's assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, which acted as the immediate cause of the war. France was brought into the war by a German declaration