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As a little aside, I once read many years ago that the second world war didn't officially end until the 1950's because someone hadn't signed an agreement?

The 1950s was a little premature for ending such a long drawn out affair as the Second World War. As I indicated in an earlier posting on this web, the end came in relatively recent times - 15 March 1991, to be precise, with the coming into force of the Treaty on the Final Settlement of Germany, signed by the Four plus Two.

The problem was that as it was a single Germany that began the War, it could not be ended until there was a single Germany to sign the appropriate document, a provision specifically included in the Potsdam Agreement of 2 August 1945.  It was only after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of East Germany into the Federal Republic that the old Four Powers could settle up with Two erstwhile Germanies, and then after formal German re-unification the Treaty on Final Settlement could come into effect.

Always a good question for a quiz - When did the Second World War formally end?

I am not all clear who "the Septics" are/were; it is not a term I have ever previously come across.  If it is intended to refer to the USA, I would stress that the point is not that the USA refused to sign the Versailles Treaty, which it did (via President Woodrow Wilson), but that it refused to ratify it (via the Senate).

As for the links, I have tried the Avalon link several times by different routes, and all I can get, so far as the Versailles Treaty is concerned, is "page not found"; I can only speak as I find.  The Sandiego link certainly gives the basic text of the Treaty, but, I repeat, it does not give the preamble, which, in any treaty, necessarily sets out the High Contracting Parties, and often much other information besides, nor does it set out the signatures and seals of the Parties at the end, together with date and place of signing.  To that extent the claim of "the Complete Text" is misleading, to put it at its mildest.  Still less does the weblink refer to any schedule of ratifications, or give any other information from which one can easily deduce the date of the Treaty coming into force.  It is certainly not the standard of work I demand of myself when formally placing information in the public domain.

I fail to see the point of repeating the question why medals and memorials cite 1914-19, as I have already set out the rationale for the configuration deriving from the Vesailles Treaty, and Scrimnet has already confirmed his agreement with me on the point.

If I deemed it necessary to cite a Victory Medal link, I would avoid citing one which insults both medal holders and readers by putting "principle" in its top line instead of "principal".  In such matters, I always take the view that if an author cannot even be bothered to get minor details right, how can he/she be trusted to get major details right?

As to the two further weblinks Scrimnet cites, it is for him to comment what he finds "wrong" about them.  I have no quarrel with their general trend, but I am bound to repeat the purport of my previous paragraph that a timeline that publishes "squable" for "squabble" in its opening paragraph is not encouraging readers to take it seriously.    

No.  As I mentioned as a principle in my earlier posting, the Versailles Treaty set out a minimum number of ratifications for the Treaty to come into force for those states who had ratified it.  The minimum number was three of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers plus Germany.  Unfortunately, of the two Versailles Treaty links provided by Scrimnet, one appears not to work, and the other provides only the bare text of the Treaty without a preamble or other documentation to define "Principal Allied and Associated Powers", or a note of the dates of ratification of any of them.

One may guess that the Principal Allied and Associated Powers included Britain, France, Italy and the USA, but since the last named, as previously mentioned, did not ratify, the Treaty probably came into force when Britain, France, Italy and Germany had all ratified, whenever that was - but it would have been a definite date, not an arbitrary choice from a selection of dates.

Fitzjohn

Quote from: scrimnet on Thursday 22 January 09 20:20 GMT (UK)

The war did not officially end until the peace treaties were signed in 1919...

If you want to get silly about it, a treaty does not come into force until it has been ratified by all the signatories, which means WWI technically ended when the Versailles Treaty was ratified by America in, I think, 1925.

Not so.  Treaties usually provide for coming into force for such signatory states as have ratified when a minimum number of ratifications have been reached, and coming into force immediately for subsequently ratifying states.  I am not sure what the Versailles Treaty, signed on 28 June 1919, provided, but there is no doubt that one major provision came into force on 20 January 1920, viz, the Covenant of the League of Nations, which the USA, notoriously, refused to ratify, to the eternal chagrin of Woodrow Wilson.

So far as Britain was concerned, as I have mentioned in two recent threads on 1918 electoral registers, it was provided by domestic statute that the Great War was not legally concluded until 31 August 1921.  (Anyone who thinks that that was rather late in the day should ponder how long it took for the Second World War to be legally concluded - but that is whole other story stretching to relatively recent times.)

Apropos the 1914-1919 configuration itself (which was, indeed, derived from the Versailles Treaty rather then the Armistice of 11.00 a.m. on 11.11.18), it is not infrequently found in publications relating to WW1, including a number of war memorials.