A wide-ranging survey traces Europe's political geography and diplomatic struggles after 1918, beginning with the armistice and the Paris peace negotiations. It analyzes how wartime ideals such as self-determination were used as instruments of policy and how rivalries among the victors—vanity, greed, and revenge—undermined durable settlement. The narrative summarizes key treaties and border adjustments and chronicles the creation or reshaping of states across Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe, including the Baltic republics, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Greater Romania, Austria, and Hungary. It examines the collapse of the Ottoman order, the Turkish nationalist response, and the Straits question, assesses developments in Soviet Russia, Germany, Italy, Greece, and Belgium, and concludes that enforcement failures and competing national interests left Europe unsettled and limited the League's effectiveness.