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Treaty of Versailles

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: British History Post 1900

   The Treaty of Versailles (1919) was the peace treaty which officially
   ended World War I between the Allied and Associated Powers and the
   German Empire. After six months of negotiations, which took place at
   the Paris Peace Conference, the treaty was signed as a follow-up to the
   armistice signed in November 1918 in the Compiègne Forest (which had
   put an end to the actual fighting). Although there were many provisions
   in the treaty, one of the more important and recognized ones required
   Germany to accept full responsibility for causing the war and, under
   the terms of articles 231-247, make reparations to certain countries
   that had made up the Allies.

   Negotiations between the allied powers started on May 7, the
   anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania. Terms imposed by the
   treaty on Germany included losing a certain amount of its own territory
   to a number of surrounding countries, being stripped of all of its
   overseas and African colonies, and its ability to make war again was
   limited by restrictions on the size of its military. Because Germany
   was not allowed to take part in the negotiations, the German government
   issued a protest to what it considered to be unfair demands, and soon
   afterwards withdrew from the proceedings. Later on the German
   president, Ebert, agreed to sign it on June 28, 1919. The treaty was
   ratified by the League of Nations on January 10, 1920. In Germany, the
   treaty caused shock and humiliation that contributed to the collapse of
   the Weimar Republic in 1933, particularly because many Germans did not
   believe that they should accept the sole responsibility of Imperial
   Germany and its allies for starting the war.

   The "Big Four" that negotiated the treaty consisted of Prime Minister
   David Lloyd George of the United Kingdom, President Georges Clemenceau
   of France and President Woodrow Wilson of the United States of America.
   The Prime Minister of Italy, Vittorio Orlando, also played a minor part
   in the discussions. Germany was not invited to France to discuss the
   treaty. At 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.

Conditions

   The treaty had provided for the creation of the League of Nations, a
   major goal of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. The League of Nations was
   intended to arbitrate international disputes and thereby avoid future
   wars. Only three of Wilson's Fourteen Points were realized, since
   Wilson was compelled to compromise with Clemenceau, Lloyd George and
   Orlando on some points in exchange for retaining approval of the
   "fourteenth point," the League of Nations.

   The common view has been that France's Clemenceau was the most vigorous
   in his pursuit of revenge against Germany, the Western Front of the war
   having been fought chiefly on French soil. This treaty was felt to be
   unreasonable at the time because it was a peace dictated by the victors
   that put the full blame for the war on Germany. This was
   over-simplistic. Some modern historians, however, argue that this cause
   was reasonable in that it reflected the harsh terms Germany had
   negotiated with Russia with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

   Besides the loss of the German colonial empire the territories Germany
   lost were:
     * Alsace-Lorraine, the territories which were ceded to Germany in
       accordance with the Preliminaries of Peace signed at Versailles on
       February 26, 1871, and the Treaty of Frankfurt of May 10, 1871,
       were restored to French sovereignty without a plebiscite as from
       the date of the Armistice of November 11, 1918. (area 14 522 km²,
       1,815,000 inhabitants (1905)),
     * Northern Schleswig including the German-dominated towns of Tondern
       ( Tønder), Apenrade, Sonderburg, Hadersleben and Lügum in
       Schleswig-Holstein, after the Schleswig Plebiscite, to Denmark
       (area 3 984 km², 163,600 inhabitants (1920)),
     * The Prussian provinces Posen and West Prussia, which Prussia had
       annexed in Partitions of Poland (1772-1795), were returned to the
       reborn Poland. This territory had already been liberated by local
       Polish population during the Great Poland Uprising of 1918-1919
       (area 53 800 km², 4,224,000 inhabitants (1931), including 510 km²
       and 26,000 inhabitants from Upper Silesia)).
     * West Prussia was given to Poland to provide free access to the sea,
       along with a sizeable German minority, creating the Polish
       corridor.
     * The Hlučínsko Hulczyn area of Upper Silesia to Czechoslovakia (area
       316 or 333 km², 49,000 inhabitants),
     * The east part of Upper Silesia, to Poland (area 3 214 km², 965,000
       inhabitants), although after plebiscite 60 % voted for Germany
     * The area of German cities Eupen and Malmedy to Belgium
     * The area of Soldau in East Prussia (railway station on the Warsaw-
       Gdańsk route) to Poland (area 492 km²),
     * The northern part of East Prussia as Memelland under control of
       France, later transferred to Lithuania without plebiscite.
     * From the eastern part of West Prussia and the southern part of East
       Prussia Warmia and Masuria, a small area to Poland,
     * The province of Saarland to be under the control of the League of
       Nations for 15 years, after that a plebiscite between France and
       Germany, to decide to which country it would belong. During this
       time the coal went to France.
     * The port of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) with the delta of Vistula
       river at the Baltic Sea was made the Freie Stadt Danzig (Free City
       of Danzig) under the League of Nations. (area 1 893 km², 408,000
       inhabitants (1929)).
     * Germany acknowledges and will respect strictly the independence of
       Austria.

   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 in September 1919 and signed a separate treaty with Germany in
   1921.

Reparations and the war guilt clause

   In her book, Margaret Olwen MacMillan wrote that "from the start,
   France and Belgium argued that claims for direct damage should receive
   priority in any distribution of reparations. Belgium had been picked
   clean. In the heavily industrialized north of France, the Germans had
   shipped out what they wanted for their own use and destroyed much of
   the rest. Even as German forces were retreating in 1918, they found
   time to blow up France's most important coal mines." 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 and was set at £6.6 Billion, about
   $32 billion. This would have taken Germany till 1984 to pay.

   The economic problems that the payments brought, and German resentment
   at their imposition, are usually cited as one of the more significant
   factors that led to the end of the Weimar Republic and the beginning of
   the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, which eventually led to the outbreak
   of World War II. Some historians, such as Margaret Olwen MacMillan,
   have since disagreed with this assertion, originally popularised by
   John Maynard Keynes.

   Commercial transport vessels, including all oceanliners, locomotives,
   commercial motorvehicles, factory equipment and anything else that was
   not "nailed down" was confiscated.

   In 1921, Carl Melchior, a WWI soldier and German financier with M. M.
   Warburg & Co who became part of the German negotiating team, thought it
   advisable to accept an impossible reparations burden. Melchior said:
   "We can get through the first two or three years with the aid of
   foreign loans. By the end of that time foreign nations will have
   realized that these large payments can only be made by huge German
   exports and these exports will ruin the trade in England and America so
   that creditors themselves will come to us to request modification."
   (Quote from: Lord D'Abernon, An Ambassador of Peace, Vol. 1, p. 194.).

   The 1924 Dawes Plan modified Germany's reparation payments. In May
   1929, the Young Plan reduced further payments to 112 billion Gold
   Marks, US $26,350,000,000 over a period of 59 years (1988). In
   addition, the Young Plan divided the annual payment, set at 2 billion
   Gold Marks, US$473 million, into two components, one unconditional part
   equal to one third of the sum and a postponable part for the remaining
   two-thirds. However, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the onset of the
   Great Depression resulted in the Allies instituting a moratorium for
   1931–32 during which the Lausanne Conference voted to cancel
   reparations. By this time Germany had paid only one eighth of the sum
   required under the Treaty of Versailles. However, the Lausanne
   agreement was contingent upon the United States agreeing to also defer
   payment of the war debt owed them by the Western European governments.
   The plan ultimately failed because of the U.S. Congress refusal to go
   along but in fact no more reparations were paid by Germany.

   On first glance, the reparations seem excessive. However, according to
   William R. Keylor in "Versailles and International Diplomacy", 'A
   increase in taxation and reduction in consumption in the Weimar
   Republic would have yielded the requisite export surplus to generate
   the foreign exchange needed to service the reparation debt.' In
   "American Reparations to Germany 1919-33", Stephen Schuker says that
   'the Weimar Republic ended up paying no net reparations at all,
   employing the proceeds of American commercial loans to discharge its
   reparation liability before defaulting on its foreign obligations in
   the early thirties.'

France's aims

   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
   Enlarge
   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

   France had suffered very heavy casualties during the war (some 1.24
   million military and 40,000 civilians dead; see World War I
   casualties), and much of the war had been fought on French soil. France
   wanted to be given control of many of Germany's factories. In wanting
   this, Clemenceau was representing the interests and opinions of the
   French public.

   Coal from the Ruhr industrial region was transported to France by
   train. French military had taken over towns in key locations such as
   Gau Algesheim, forcing homelessness upon its inhabitants. German
   railroad workers sabotaged coal shipments to France. Around 200 German
   railroad workers involved in sabotage were executed by French
   authorities.

   Clemenceau's intentions were therefore simple: punitive reparations and
   Germany’s military to be not only weakened for the time being, but
   permanently weakened so as never to be able to invade France again.
   Clemenceau also wanted to symbolically destroy the old, militaristic
   Germany – something that could have been achieved by never allowing the
   pre-1914 politicians back into politics and by hanging the Kaiser (who
   had abdicated towards the end of the war and fled to Holland). He 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.

   Territorily, France felt that Germany should be punished. Obviously, he
   demanded the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France, but also the
   demilitarisation of the Rhineland to act as a buffer zone against
   future attacks. Furthermore, Germany’s colonies should be taken from
   her and distributed between the victors. Clemenceau was the most
   radical member of the Big Four, and received the nickname "Le Tigre".

Britain's aims

   It is often suggested that Lloyd George represented the middle ground
   between the idealistic Wilson and the vengeful Clemenceau. However, his
   position was a great deal more delicate than it first appears. The
   British public wanted to punish Germany in a similar fashion to the
   French for her apparent sole responsibility for the outbreak of the
   war, and had been promised such a treaty in the 1918 election that
   Lloyd George had won. There was also pressure from the Conservatives
   (who were part of the coalition government) demanding that Germany be
   punished severely in order to prevent such a war in the future as well
   as preserving Britain’s empire. Lloyd George did manage to increase the
   overall reparations payment and Britain’s share by demanding
   compensation for widows, orphans, and men left unable to work through
   injury. Also, he wanted to maintain and possibly increase Britain’s
   colonies, and both he and Clemenceau felt threatened by Wilson’s
   ‘self-determination’, which they saw as a direct threat to their
   respective empires. Lastly, like Clemenceau, he supported upholding
   secret treaties and the idea of a naval blockade.

   However, Lloyd George was aware of the potential trouble that could
   come from an embittered Germany, and he felt that a less harsh treaty
   that did not engender vengence would be better at preserving peace in
   the long run. Another factor was that Germany was Britain’s second
   largest trade partner, and a reduced German economy due to reparations
   would lower Britain’s trade. Moreover, he (and Clemenceau) recognised
   that America’s status as an economic superpower would lead to the U.S.
   becoming a military superpower in the future, and subsequently,
   Wilson’s idealistic stance could not be laughed at if Britain and
   France were to remain on good terms with the USA. This helps to
   understand why the League of Nations, Wilson’s main idea (along with
   self-determination), was apparently jumped at by Britain and France
   when Wilson arrived at the peace conference. Furthermore, Britain
   wanted to maintain the 'Balance of Power' - no country within Europe
   being allowed to become a lot more powerful than the others. If
   France's wishes were carried out, then not only would Germany be
   crippled, but France would soon become the main superpower, and so
   disrupt the Balance of Power in two ways.

   Overall, Lloyd George's aims can be summarised as follows: 1) To defend
   British interests by preserving Britain’s naval supremacy that had been
   threatened by Germany in the run up to the war, maintaining Britain’s
   empire and possibly increased colonial expansion; 2) To reduce
   Germany’s future military power and to obtain reparations; and lastly,
   3) To not create an embittered Germany that would seek revenge and
   threaten peace in the long term future.

United States of America's aims

   The United States of America took a more peaceful view towards the
   reparations of Germany. They put forward fourteen points, which the
   German public thought that the Treaty would be based around. The goal
   of President Wilson in the search for peace was "to make the world safe
   for democracy".

Reaction to the treaty

   The French felt they had been slighted, and subsequently voted out
   Clemenceau at the next election. Britain as a whole was at first
   content, but then felt that the Treaty was too harsh, and of particular
   concern were Germany’s eastern frontiers, which were seen as a
   potential trouble spot for the future. For the USA, it was seen as
   Europe’s problem, and that overall, the Treaty was too harsh.

   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 call for the reduction in armaments by all
   nations with disapproval. This was supposed to reduce, indirectly, the
   ability of navies to create blockades.

   The Big Three had known even before they met that Germany was to be
   punished. 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, with financial compensation for its
   military expenditures and the destruction of the old empires.

   The result was a compromise that left nobody satisfied. Germany was
   neither crushed nor conciliated, which, in retrospect, did not bode
   well for the future of Germany, Europe or the world as a whole.

   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.

   Henry Kissinger called the treaty a "brittle compromise agreement
   between American utopism and European paranoia - too conditional to
   fulfill the dreams of the former, too tentative to alleviate the fears
   of the latter."

   On Nazi Germany's rise to power, Adolf Hitler resolved to overturn the
   remaining military and territorial provisions of the Treaty of
   Versailles. German military buildup began almost immediately, in direct
   defiance of the Treaty, which, by then, had been destroyed by Hitler in
   front of a cheering crowd. "It was this treaty which caused a chain
   reaction leading to World War II" claimed historian Dan Rowling (1951).

   More recently, however, a new point of view has gained currency
   (well-articulated by historian Gerhard Weinberg in his book A World At
   Arms) that the treaty was in fact quite advantageous to Germany and far
   more generous than she had a right to expect. More importantly,
   according to this view, the Bismarckian Reich was maintained as a
   political unit instead of being broken up, and Germany largely escaped
   post-war military occupation. (Mistakes that were not repeated
   following the Second World War.)

   In retrospect, a good case can be made that Germany was in a superior
   strategic position in 1919 than it had been five years earlier. Instead
   of having an economically expanding and threatening Russian Empire
   allied with France on her eastern flank, Germany now faced a
   diplomatically isolated Russia that was also embroiled in revolution
   and civil war. To the south, the large (though increasingly enfeebled)
   Austro-Hungarian monarchy had been replaced by a group of small, weak
   republics that were to prove easy prey for a revitalized Germany two
   decades later. Indeed, the ease with which Germany later shook off the
   treaty's restrictions argues strongly against its being the "
   Carthaginian peace" of John Maynard Keynes' formulation.

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