Article / Updated 03-26-2016
The finger-pointing about who caused the First World War began almost as soon as the war was over. Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany accepted responsibility but the Germans angrily denied that the war was their fault. The French insisted that the treaty correctly apportioned blame, but the Americans were very wary of putting the whole blame for the war on one country, and within a few years the British had changed their tune too: David Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, described the states of Europe as having somehow slid into war, with no one country more to blame than any of the others.