The treaty was a treaty meant to be long lasting. Germany had a restricted army, it was to pay indemnities to France which would allow them to remilitarize and maintain peace, and the people of Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc. were freed and helped guarantee the restraint of German influence.

The issue was not the terms; all things considered the terms were not that outrageous especially compared to what Germany was planning on doing and what they did do to Russia at Brest-Litovsk. The reason the treaty broke down and war began again was because the French and British were just not willing to actually enforce its terms; 1924 was the last time the treaty would be enforced and even then the terms of indemnities would be cut in half.

Germany was fully capable of paying her debts and if she was made to France would have been much better off. If Germany was not allowed to seize the demilitarized zone and was not allowed to expand its military they would have not been in position to start the war. If France and Britain were actually keen on maintaining Austrian and Czech sovereignty the war never would have gotten to what it turned into.

Ultimately the war happened not because Versailles was a 20 year truce but because France and Britain were so paralyzed in the fear of starting another war they let a far greater one accumulate in stride.

To follow up /u/elos_ comments, the Treaty of Versailles did NOT make a second war inevitable, although it did incur resentment from the Germans. Clemenceau made the comment at the time that it was fraught with possibilities, and he was exactly right. The treaty was too lenient to check German power as people like Foch had hoped, but just harsh enough to incur resentment.

By 1924, with the introduction of the Dawes Plan, Germany's economy was stabilizing, and growing at a rapid rate. Under Gustav Stresemann, the Treaty of Locarno recognized the Western borders set out by the treaty, and there was movement towards rapprochement. Europe was by no means entirely stable in the 20s, there were right wing parties in Germany, and the fascists controlled Italy, but with continued prosperity there WAS room for a peaceful Europe, at least IMO.

This was dashed by the Great Depression. The economic dislocation wrought severely weakened Britain, France and America, while giving Hitler an opening, and making Italy and the Soviet Union appear good in comparison, seemingly discrediting democracy in Europe. The road to the second world war really began in the 1930s, not at Versailles.

From my understanding, the reason why people talk about the treaty as being one of the factors that lead to WW2 wasn't necessarily the fact that it was more of a truce, but rather because it was a very punitive treaty, that held Germany personnally responsible for the war, while in fact they were not alone in all this story. The fact that they had to pay a truckload of money to the opposing countries and that the military power of Germany was forced to be reduced lead to resentment in Germany, which in a way could have contributed to the Second World war.

Perhaps a lasting treaty would have been one that would be less punitive, and didn't recognize Germany as the sole reason why the war occured. Then again, it's impossible to tell if WW2 would have happened, because as we all know, we can't make history with "ifs" or "what ifs".

I'll admit though that I'm not the most knowledgeable on the subject of WW1 and the treaties that came after it. I did take classes about this period during my B.A. in history, but I'm sure someone with better knowledge of the period could help you more.