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Treaty of Versailles

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The Treaty of Versailles of 1919 was the peace treaty which officially ended World War I between the Allies and Germany. After six months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the treaty was signed as a follow-up to an armistice signed months before, in the forest of Compiègne (which had put an end to the actual fighting). The treaty required that Germany claim full responsibility for causing the war, and pay large amounts of compensation (war reparations) to the allies. Germany also lost territory to many surrounding countries, had its military forces severely limited and was stripped of its overseas and African colonies. Representatives of the new German government (Weimar Republic) were forced by the victors to sign the treaty; otherwise fighting was threatened to begin anew. Germany's foreign minister, Hermann Müller, undersigned it on June 28, 1919. The treaty was ratified by the League of Nations on January 10, 1920. In Germany the treaty caused a shock – often referred to as a trauma or anti-Versailles-complex – which eventually contributed to the collapse of the Weimar Republic in 1933 and Adolf Hitler's rise to power. iloveyou

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The treaty was an International affair


Conditions

 
Proclamation of the German Empire in the Salle des Glaces, Versailles

The treaty provided for the creation of the League of Nations, a major goal of US president Woodrow Wilson. The League of Nations was intended to arbitrate international disputes and thereby avoid future wars. Not all of Wilson's Fourteen Points were realized, however, much to the Germans' and Wilson's dismay. The French demands prevailed in the treaty.

Territorial

Other provisions included the loss of German colonies and loss of some territories Germany had annexed or conquered in the relatively recent past:

Article 156 of the treaty transferred German concessions in Shandong, China to Japan rather than returning sovereign authority to China. Chinese outrage over this provision led to demonstrations and a cultural movement known as the May Fourth Movement and influenced China not to sign the treaty. China declared the end of its war against Germany on September 1919 and signed a separate new equal treaty with Germany in 1921.

Military

The military conditions of the Treaty of Versailles were harsh and largely motivated out of fear and a French wish for revenge. France's loss of Alsace-Lorraine after its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War contributed greatly to this desire for revenge (known as revanchism). Furthermore, the large number of casualties and massive economic damage resulting from the war (much of which was fought on French soil) caused a fear of future German aggression and an even greater sentiment for revenge. In fact a great deal of the provisions regarding Germany in the treaty can be linked back to this fear and desire for vengeance.

The German Army was to be restricted to 100,000 men, there was to be no conscription, no tanks or heavy artillery and no German General Staff. The German Navy was restricted to 15,000 men and no submarines while the fleet was limited to six battleships (of less than 10,000 tonnes), six cruisers and 12 destroyers. Germany was not permitted an air force (Luftwaffe). Finally, Germany was explicitly required to retain all enlisted men for 12 years and all officers for 25 years, so that only a limited number of men would have military training.

Reparations and the War Guilt Clause

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Woodrow Wilson with the American Peace Commissioners

Article 231 of the Treaty (the 'war guilt' clause) held Germany solely responsible for all 'loss and damage' suffered by the Allies during the war and provided the basis for reparations. The total sum due was decided by an Inter-Allied Reparations Commission. In January 1921, this number was officially put at 269 billion gold marks, a sum that many economists deemed to be excessive. Later that year, the amount was reduced to 132 billion marks, which still seemed astronomical to most German observers, both because of the amount itself as well as the terms which would have required Germany to pay until 1987. The economic problems that the payments brought, and German resentment at their imposition, are cited by some as one of the causes of the end of the Weimar Republic and the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, which eventually led to the outbreak of World War II. In any case, the reparations issue turned out to be a magnificent source of nationalistic proganda.

US position on the treaty

The United States never officially ratified the treaty. The elections of 1918 had seen the Republicans gain control of the United States Senate, and they blocked ratification twice (the second time on March 19, 1920), some favoring isolationism and opposing the League of Nations, others lamenting the excessive reparations. As a result, the US never joined the League of Nations and later negotiated a separate peace treaty with Germany: the Treaty of Berlin of 1921 which confirmed the reparation payments and other provisions of the Treaty of Versailles but explicitly excluded all articles related to the League of Nations

An unsatisfactory compromise between the victors

 
Prime Minister David Lloyd George of the United Kingdom, Vittorio Orlando of Italy, Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau of France, and President Woodrow Wilson of the United States of America

The "Big Three" consisted of Prime Minister Lloyd George of the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau of France, and President Woodrow Wilson of the United States of America. Vittorio Orlando also served as an advisor from Italy and Count Makino was also sent from Japan. At the Treaty of Versailles it was difficult to decide on a common position because their aims conflicted with one another. The result was said to be a compromise that nobody liked. Henry Kissinger called the treaty a "brittle compromise agreement between American utopism and European paranoia."

France had suffered very heavy casualties during the war (some 1.24 million military and 40,000 civilians dead; see World War I), and much of the war had been fought on French soil. Much of the country was in ruins, with extensive damage to historic and important buildings and resources. George Clemenceau of France wanted reparations from Germany to rebuild the war-torn country. In all, approximately 750,000 houses and 23,000 factories had been destroyed, and money was demanded to pay for reconstruction. In 1871, France and Germany had also fought, with Germany recovering an area with a partly German-speaking population that had been annexed by France in the 18th century, Elsaß/Lothringen -Alsace-Lorraine. Clemenceau also wanted to guard against the possibility of an attack ever coming from Germany again, and demanded a demilitarisation of the Rhineland in Germany, and Allied troops to patrol the area. This was called a "territorial safety zone". They also wanted to drastically reduce the number of soldiers in the German army to a controllable point. As part of the reparations, France wanted to be given control of many of Germany's factories.

Not only did France want to punish Germany, it wanted to preserve its empire and colonies. While America put forward a belief in national or ethnic "self-determination", France and Britain were also strongly motivated by a desire to hold onto their empires. Clemenceau largely represented the people of France in that he (and many other Frenchmen) wanted revenge upon the German nation. Clemenceau also wanted to protect secret treaties and impose naval blockades around Germany, so that France could control trade imported to and exported from the defeated country. In effect, Clemenceau and many other French wanted to impose policies deliberately meant to cripple Germany militarily, politically, and economically. He was the most radical member of the Big Three, and received the nickname "Le Tigre" for this reason.

The United Kingdom had played a backseat role only in that the country itself was never invaded. Many British soldiers died on the front line in France, and so many people in Britain also wanted revenge as much as the French. Prime Minister Lloyd George supported severe reparations, but to a lesser extent than the French. Lloyd George was aware that if the demands made by France were carried out, France could become extremely powerful in Central Europe, and a delicate balance could be unsettled. Although he wanted to ensure this didn't happen, he also wanted to make Germany pay. Lloyd George was also worried by Woodrow Wilson's proposal for "self-determination" and, like the French, wanted to preserve the British Empire. This position was part of the competition between two of the world's greatest empires, and their battle to preserve them. Like the French, Lloyd George also supported naval blockades and secret treaties.

On the other hand, US president Woodrow Wilson had very different views about how to punish Germany. He had proposed the Fourteen Points before the war ended, which were less harsh than what the French or British wanted. Since the American people had been in the war only since April 1917, they felt that they should get out of the European mess as rapidly as possible. President Wilson, however, wanted to institute a world policy that ensured that nothing like this could ever happen again. In order to maintain peace, the first attempt at a world court was created - the League of Nations. The theory was that if weaker and more fragile nations were attacked, others would guarantee protection from the aggressor.

In addition, Wilson strongly promoted the concept of "self-determination"--the idea that distinct national and/or ethnic groups should be self-governing. This notion of self-determination resulted in increased patriotic sentiment in many countries that were or had once been under the control of the old empires, and even received popular support in some of the imperial home countries. Self-determination was, and continues to be, a source of friction between different ethnic groups around the world as each group seeks to define and enhance its position in the world.

The acceptance by many peoples of the concept of self-determination was the beginning of the end for the empires, including those of Britain and France. Self-determination is partly the reason so many new countries were created in Eastern Europe; Wilson was not willing to agree to an increase in the size of Britain, France, or Italy. Poles fought against Germany to regain freedom in: the Greater Poland Uprising in Posen and three Silesian Uprisings in Upper Silesia.


Territorial adjustments were made with the aim of grouping together ethnic minorities in their own states, free from the domination of once powerful empires, specifically the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire. Secret treaties were also to be discouraged, and Britain and France greeted a reduction in armaments by all nations with disapproval. This was supposed to reduce indirectly the ability of navies to create blockades.

The Big Three knew even before they met that they wanted to punish Germany. France wanted revenge, Britain wanted a relatively strong economically viable Germany as a counterweight to French dominance on Continental Europe, and the U.S. wanted the creation of a permanent peace as quickly as possible, as well as the destruction of the old empires. The result was a compromise which left nobody satisfied. Germany was neither crushed nor conciliated, which did not bode well for the future of Germany, Europe and the world as a whole. The Treaty of Versailles did cripple Germany's economy in the early 1920's and left it vulnerable to the equally devastating Great Depression of the early 1930's, which in turn paved the way for Nazism to receive popular support. Implementing reparations also failed to achieve its punitive aims insofar as Germany profited from the treaty by neither repaying most of its foreign loans in the following decade nor completing her indemnity payments.

Alternative viewpoints

The interpretation that Germany was seriously weakened and humiliated by the Versailles Treaty has been disputed by some historians. Some of the facts cited include:

- The commissions to supervise disarmament were withdrawn and the reparations payments were reduced and eventually cancelled, to mention just some of the changes made in Germany's favour. It is worth mentioning that the financial burden of reconstruction was shifted from Germany to those countries that were actually occupied and devastated by the war.

- Germany's industry and economic potential were less affected than her European enemies, and although weakened by the war, Germany was relatively stronger vis-a-vis her enemies in 1919 than she had been in 1913.

- The creation of Poland, so derided by the critics of Versailles, shielded Germany from her potentially most powerful adversary, Russia. Independent Poland thwarted the Bolshevik advance into a war-weakened Europe at the Battle of Warsaw in 1920, at a time when Germany faced Communist-inspired unrest and revolution.

- The postwar situation in the Balkans left Germany infinitely more powerful than any of her eastern or south-eastern European neighbours, none of which showed any signs of working together against Germany.

- In short, Germany was strong enough to dominate Europe once more within two decades of her 'defeat' in World War One.

- David Lloyd George was not as adamant at Clemenceau with regards to German reparations, as the article seems to imply.

Further reading

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