The Treaty of Versailles

Transcription

1 The Treaty of Versailles International Relations - The Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles was a compromise between President Wilson's Fourteen Points and his desire to make a "just peace", and the French leader Clemenceau's desire for revenge. Germany had to accept responsibility for starting the war, and had to agree to pay for the cost of the damage (set at 6.6 billion in 1921). Germany's army was reduced to 100,000 men. Germany's navy had to be handed over to the victorious Allies, and Germany was not allowed to manufacture war planes or tanks in the future. No German troops were allowed in the Rhineland, the area of Germany closest to France. France was given Alsace and Lorraine. The newly created state of Poland was given the German territories of West Prussia and Posen. The port of Danzig was placed under the control of the League of Nations. As a result of these changes, East Prussia was cut off from the rest of Germany by what became known as the "Polish Corridor". Belgium was given Eupen and Malmedy. Germany was not allowed to unite with Austria (this was known as Anschluss, and it was forbidden). The Treaty of Versailles was a "dictated peace" as Germany was not allowed to negotiate the terms. The conference and the Big Three In January 1919 delegates from 32 countries met in Paris to make peace after the First World War - the peace they hoped would 'end all wars'. The conference was dominated by David Lloyd George, Georges Clemençeau and Woodrow Wilson, the leaders of Britain, France and America, often known as the 'Big Three'. Delegates from 32 countries met in January 1919, but the conference was dominated by the Big Three - Lloyd George (Britain), Clemençeau (France) and Wilson (USA). The delegations made presentations to them, after which the Big Three made their decision. Negotiations were difficult. Each of the Big Three wanted such different things, that by March 1919 it looked as though the conference was going to break up. Lloyd George saved the conference. On 25 March 1919, he issued the Fontainebleau Memorandum, and persuaded Clemençeau to agree to the League of Nations and a more lenient peace treaty that would not destroy Germany. Then he went to Wilson and persuaded him to agree to the War Guilt Clause. The Germans were shown the proposed Treaty of Versailles. There was no negotiation. The Germans published a rebuttal, arguing that the treaty was unfair, but they were ignored. On 28 June 1919, the delegates met at the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles, near Paris, and forced two Germans to sign the treaty.

2 Expectations of the peace treaty The Armistice of 11 November 1918 was greeted with great joy. The people of Europe wanted lasting peace, and also to make Germany pay for the damage done, and revenge. The Germans had expected that the peace treaty would be based on President Wilson's Fourteen Points. The six key principles of the Fourteen Points were: 1. Setting up a League of Nations 2. Disarmament 3. Self- determination for the people of Europe - the right to rule themselves 4. Freedom for colonies 5. Freedom of the seas 6. Free trade The Big Three expected to base the peace treaty on the terms of the armistice, which were much harsher: 1. German army disbanded, and Germany to give up its navy. 2. Allied troops to occupy the Rhineland. 3. Reparation for damage done and war losses. What did the Big Three want? The conference was initially planned as a pre- meeting of the big three to decide what terms they were going to ask from Germany at an official peace conference, but the pre- meeting quickly became the meeting where the decisions were made. The problem was the big three had different ideas about what the terms of the treaty should be. Wilson's aims To end war by creating a League of Nations based on his Fourteen Points. To ensure Germany was not destroyed. Not to blame Germany for the war - he hated the Guilt Clause. Clemenceau's aims Revenge and to punish Germany. To return Alsace- Lorraine to France. No League of Nations. An independent Rhineland. Huge reparations. To disband the German army so that Germany would never be strong enough to attack France again. Lloyd George A 'just' peace that would be tough enough to please the electors who wanted to 'make Germany pay', but would leave Germany strong enough to trade. Land for Britain's empire. To safeguard Britain's naval supremacy.

3 Opinions of Versailles Germany The Germans hated everything about the treaty: 1. They were angry that they had not been allowed to negotiate. 2. 'Deutsche Zeitung', a German newspaper, vowed: "We will never stop until we win back what we deserve." 3. Count Brockdorff- Rantzau, leader of the German delegation at Versailles said Article 231- the war- guilt clause - was: "a lie". Germany officially denied the war- guilt clause in There was a revolution (the Kapp Putsch) against the treaty in Berlin in Germany hated reparations. It had to be made to pay in 1921, defaulted in 1923 and eventually Hitler refused to pay altogether. Britain Britain gained some German colonies and the German navy was destroyed but: 1. Lloyd George thought the treaty was too harsh, saying: "We shall have to fight another war again in 25 years time." 2. The British diplomat Harold Nicolson called it: "neither just nor wise" and the people who made it: "stupid". 3. The economist John Maynard Keynes prophesied that reparations would ruin the economy of Europe. France France got Alsace- Lorraine, German colonies, harsh reparations and a tiny German army but: 1. Many French people wanted an independent, not a demilitarised, Rhineland. 2. Most French people did not think the League of Nations would protect them against Germany. America Woodrow Wilson got the League of Nations, and new nation- states were set up in Eastern Europe but: 1. Wilson thought the treaty was far too harsh. 2. Self- determination proved impossible to implement - Yugoslavia for example did not survive as a united country, and Czechoslovakia was annexed in stages by the Nazis in 1938 and Many Americans did not want to get involved in Europe, and in 1920 the American Senate refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles, or join the League of Nations. The Treaty of Versailles The terms of the Treaty of Versailles were announced in June The German politicians were not consulted about the terms of the Treaty. They were shown the draft terms in May They complained bitterly, but the Allies did not take any notice of their complaints. Germany had very little choice but to sign the Treaty. The main terms were: 1. War guilt Germany had to accept the guilt for starting the war. 2. Germany's armed forces The German army was limited to 100,000 men. Conscription (forced army service) was banned; soldiers had to be volunteers. Germany was not allowed armoured vehicles, submarines or aircraft.

4 The navy could build only six battleships. The Rhineland became a demilitarised zone. This meant that no German troops were allowed into that area. 3. Reparations Germany had to pay for the damage caused by the war. The exact figure was not agreed until 1921 when it was set at 6,600 million, an enormous amount. 4. German territories and colonies Alsace- Lorraine went to France Eupen, Moresnet and Malmedy went to Belgium North Schleswig went to Denmark (after a vote by the population) West Prussia and Posen went to Poland Danzig became a free city controlled by the League of Nations (giving Poland a seaport) Memel went to Lithuania Saar was controlled by the League of Nations (with a vote by the population to be held on the matter after 15 years) German colonies became mandates under the control of the League of Nations (in practice this usually meant Britain and France) Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania became independent states (Germany had taken these states from Russia in 1918) 5. League of Nations The League of Nations was set up as an international 'police force'. The League was based on a Covenant (or agreement). The Covenant and the constitution of the League of Nations were part of the terms of the Treaty. Germany was not invited to join the League until it had shown that it could be a peace- loving country. How did France react to the Treaty? Reactions in France were mixed. There were celebrations that the war was definitely over. People approved of the reparations that Germany had to pay. They also liked the fact that Germany's borders with France (the Rhineland) would be demilitarised. This meant Germany could not station any troops in this area. They appreciated that the coalmines of the Saar would bring prosperity to France instead of Germany. They also believed that the League of Nations would be a powerful force for peace. It would protect France if Germany recovered and tried to act aggressively again. However, there was a strong sense that Germany still threatened France. Many French people looked at the terrible cost of the war and believed that France had suffered far more than Germany. Soon after the Treaty, Clemenceau stood for election as President of France. He was outraged when other candidates stood against him. It was then that he realised how bitter many people were about the Treaty. How did the USA react to the Treaty? In the USA reactions to the Treaty were generally negative. Many Americans felt that the Treaty was unfair on Germany. More importantly, they felt that Britain and France were making themselves rich at

5 Germany's expense and that the USA should not be helping them to do this. This was not really the case, but many Americans believed it. This was partly because American politics were deeply divided at the time. President Wilson led the Democratic Party. However, his rivals in the Republican Party dominated the US Congress. They used the Treaty as an opportunity to criticise Wilson. Wilson has to take some of the blame for this as he made little effort to consult the Republicans about the Treaty. Americans were also uneasy about Wilson's scheme for a League of Nations. They were concerned that belonging to the League would drag the USA into international disputes that were not their concern. In the end, the Congress rejected the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations. How did Germany react to the Treaty? Reactions to the Treaty in Germany were very negative. There were protests in the German Reichstag (Parliament) and out on the streets. It is not hard to see why Germans were outraged. Germany lost 10% of its land, all its overseas colonies, 12.5% of its population, 16% of its coal and 48% of its iron industry. There were also the humiliating terms, which made Germany accept blame for the war, limit their armed forces and pay reparations. What do historians think of the Treaty? Much criticism has been made of the Treaty because it was too harsh on Germany. On the other hand, historians have pointed out that Germany could have been treated a lot more harshly for several reasons: Germany only accepted the Fourteen Points when it was clear they were losing the war. In the harsh Treaty of Brest- Litovsk, the Germans took away 34% of Russia's population and 50% of its industry and made them pay 300 million gold roubles in reparations. Clemenceau wanted the Treaty to be much harsher, with Germany broken up into smaller states, but Wilson stopped this happening. The reparations payments cost Germany only 2% of its annual production. Germany's main economic problem was not reparations but war debt, which it had planned to pay by winning the war and making other countries pay reparations. In 1924, Germany received huge loans from the USA to help its economy recover. The years were fairly prosperous for Germany. For example, Germany produced twice as much steel as Britain in Some historians believe that the peacemakers did the best job they could, given the difficult circumstances they were in. Other historians believe the Treaty was a disastrous half measure. It damaged Germany enough to cause resentment. However, it left Germany strong enough to seek revenge. Historians' opinions on the Treaty of Versailles The views of historians on Versailles have changed since Immediately after the war, western historians in the main held the belief that the Treaty was just and reflected the sacrifices that Allied men had made at the Front. With the onset of the Great Depression in 1929 views softened towards Germany, and there was support for the case that the Germans had been poorly deal with. Nazi

6 aggression and World War II saw historiography return to the 1919 stance. In the 1960s with the Cold War at its peak the German historians Fritz Fischer and Imanuel Geiss shocked the world of historiography by claiming that Germany had caused World War I for 'certain economic, strategic and diplomatic reasons'. They implied that there is no argument that the Treaty of Versailles was not as harsh as it could have been. The following brief collection of sources represents a sample from recent times. So far as the war per se is concerned, historians have more recently focused on individual battles, assessing their significance in the ebb and flow of the war. The tutorial on the Australians at Hamel is an example of this. Read these views on the Treaty of Versailles and respond to the questions that follow. Source A - A.J.P. Taylor, in The History of the First World War, 1963: Though the Germans accepted the treaty in the formal sense of agreeing to sign it, none took the signature seriously. The treaty seemed to them to be wicked, unfair, dictation, a slave treaty. All Germans intended to repudiate it at some time in the future, if it did not fall to pieces of its own absurdity. Source B - David Thomson, in Europe since Napoleon, 1966: The men in Paris never had a free hand. Constricted not only by their wartime agreements with one another and by pledges at home, but also by the accumulated debris of war itself, they could do no more than try to produce some order from chaos, determine the details of frontiers and plan projects of compensation, and leave the achievement of greater precision and perfection to subsequent negotiation and good sense. They were not, as they have sometimes been depicted, men behaving like gods and re- shaping a new heaven on earth... Perhaps the biggest mistake they made was to mention at all the ideals of absolute justice or perpetual peace; for these, surely, were a most impossible outcome of the conditions in which Europe found itself when the guns no longer thundered and the men came marching home. Source C - Fritz Fischer, in The War Aims of Imperial Germany, 1976:...The German Empire made a bid between 1914 and 1918 to secure a position in the world which she believed was hers by right. Moreover, this mentality did not disappear with the fall of the monarchy in 1918; it continued to survive and took even more grotesque forms during the frustrating years of the Weimar Republic when a constant aim of all German governments had been to effect a revision of the Versailles settlement. Only against his background is the emergence of the 'Bohemian corporal' with his pathological lust for revenge and aggrandisement understandable. Source D - John Terrain, in The Mighty Continent, 1976: [The War Guilt Clause]: a stigma on an entire nation. This was a moral judgment which an entire nation felt entitled to resent. Schneidemann resigned, exclaiming: 'May the hand wither that signs this Treaty'. But there was nothing for it: Germany was powerless; sign she must. Source E - G. Schultz, in Revolutions and Peace Treaties , 1970:

7 The war had ended with the collapse of the strongest military powers in Europe; they could therefore not make any significant contribution to the discussion on the shape of the future peace. For the moment the Allies were therefore objectively free to decide their policies without limiting factors... The peacemakers failed to establish a permanent order... If one examines the work of the Paris conference one finds errors and mistakes in rich measure and can criticise to one's heart's content... The historian only does justice to his legitimate task if he detaches himself from contemporary judgments with their over dependence on first impressions. There is a wide gap between the real significance of the peace treaties and the subjective verdict passed on them. Yet both were undoubtedly of great importance. Source F - John Sherer in World War I, 1980: Of the former Empires shaken by the War, only the German Empire survived...its sovereignty was secure...alone of all the defeated nations it preserved its territorial unity. The treaty restrictions were irksome, but made no serious inroads on national sovereignty, and, if anything, it provided a powerful stimulus to German nationalism. The Treaty of Versailles may have created Hitler, and it also preserved as a state the country in which he was to make his mark... If the First World War was fought to prevent Germany from creating hegemony in Europe, it failed. Germany was weakened, but not so weakened that it could not rise within a generation to threaten the balance of world power once again. The Empires of Old Europe had been swept away. The provisions of the victorious peace- makers failed to fill the vacuum millions died in vain. Source G - Douglas Newton, in Germany , 1990: Whether Germany was treated justly or unjustly by the victors at the Peace Conference is not a question of fact but of moral judgment. Some argue that, if the Versailles Treaty was harsh, so too would have been any framed by a victorious Germany, as in the case of Brest- Litovsk. Others argue that any peace which fell short of the ideals of reconciliation was unjust because of the high ideals for which Allied statesmen had claimed to be fighting... What is beyond question is that the process of peacemaking or rather the absence of any genuine peace negotiations... made all of Germany believe that the [Weimar] Republic had been treated shabbily. Questions 1. Summarise the main argument(s) of each historian. 2. Quote evidence that suggests that: o the Treaty was harsh towards Germany; o the Treaty was fair to Germany. 3. Which historians claim that the Treaty caused problems for the future? What were some of these problems? 4. To what extend does the Treaty of Versailles reflect that the Great War was NOT the war to end war? 5. Prioritise each source in terms of usefulness and reliability to an historian studying the aftermath of the Great War.

8 Name Date Period Page# AICE International History Treaty of Versailles 1. What were the main terms of the Treaty of Versailles? 2. What were the Germans expecting when they surrendered? 3. What type of treaty did Germany receive? 4. What were the terms of the treaty in regards to a. Land loss b. Military restrictions c. Blame d. Reparations 5. What did each of the following countries get out of the Treaty of Versailles? a. Britain b. France c. America 6. What were Germany s expectations for the peace treaty? 7. What did the Big Three want? a. Britain b. France c. America 8. What were the opinions of the Treaty of Versailles by the Big Three? 9. How did Big Three react to the Treaty of Versailles? 10. How did Germany react to the Treaty of Versailles? 11. Answer the following question completely Why did Germany resent the terms of the Treaty of Versailles? How justified were the German criticisms of the Treaty of Versailles?