Modern World Blunder: The Treaty of Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles is a document that brought closure to World War I. The treaty dealt with Germany's surrender to the Allied powers. Under the treaty Germany suffered humiliation, economic collapse, and was ultimately shunned by world powers in her time of need. This mishandling of Germany's future at the hands of the leaders of the victorious nations at that time forced Germany to seek radical changes within its government. These unrealistic treaty expectations were present from the very start of the process that brought about the treaty in Paris. "Paris was a nightmare......the mingled significance and unreality of the decisions; levity, blindness, insolence, confused cries from without, -- all the elements of ancient tragedy were there." (Keynes 7). It was the Treaty of Versailles that lead to the Nazi party's ascension to power and subsequently World War II.

Treaty of Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles was the first and most important of several treaties brought about during the Peace Conference of Paris in 1919. It formally sealed the defeat of Germany following World War I and served as the cornerstone of a peace settlement process for the new Europe that emerged from a ravaged land decimated by death of 10 million of its people. Political and social changes during this time have rarely been experienced by Europe. Chief among these changes was the collapse of the Russian, Austrian, German, and Ottoman Empires and their ruling dynasties.

As the war drew to a close late in 1918, Austria-Hungary disappeared from the map of Europe. In Russia, revolution was the popular pastime of its people and pursued by the Bolshevik movement. Germany was at the mercy of its victors, a very bitter France and its allies. The victors were sure to make territorial adjustments to both Germany's eastern and western borders. The Ottoman Empire actually started its collapse prior to World War I and the war just helped push the Empire to ruin. The Turks, under the treaty, stood to lose control over all non-Turkish peoples. These four great collapsed Empires were to be replaced by a series of new and unstable governments and countries mostly located in Eastern Europe between Germany and Russia.

These new states effectively created a power vacuum that would suck Europe into a worse situation than before the war. Russia was defeated by Germany and Germany was in turn defeated by a combined allied effort including France, Britain, and America. However, both Russia and Germany remained powerful despite their defeats. Russia was bent on a sweeping revolution that would encompass the globe and Germany was interested in protecting its borders. It is with this knowledge that the victorious powers converged upon Paris in December 1918 to write a treaty that would force Germany to respect its new frontiers and to limit the extent of Russian revolution.

The Peace Conference of Paris formally convened on January 18, 1919. The top four western delegates were known as the council of four. Georges Clemenceau, Premier of France and President of the Peace Conference; David Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister; Thomas Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States; and Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, Prime Minister of Italy. The four agreed that the draft should insure the longevity of peace and to recognize the defeat of Germany. Beyond this there was very little middle ground. Clemenceau, was concerned with stripping the Germans of the Rhineland and preventing any further attacks towards France. Lloyd George did not want to weaken Germany and wished to return Europe to the way it were before the war with the exception of protecting France from Germany. President Wilson was obsessed with his famous fourteen points (though he only cared about the last one). The Italian spokesman played a minor role and only wanted to secure some territories promised to it by France and Great Britain. Despite these disagreements the treaty was finished four months later, in April, when the allies instructed Germany to send a delegation to receive the finished document.

The major parts of the treaty were the fourteen points on Wilson's famous list, the establishment of the League of Nations and also the Articles, which dealt with German rights and the country's interests outside Germany. President Wilson believed that the League of Nations would in time deal with any shortcomings, which may have been incorporated into the treaty. On June 28, 1919, the fifth anniversary of the assassination of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the treaty was signed in the Hall of Mirrors. All the great powers signed it except the United States, which refused to ratify it. In August 25, 1921, the Americans concluded a separate peace treaty with Germany.

German Hardship

Germany's treaty was unforgiving mostly because the Germans were the principal leaders of the Central Powers in World War I. The Germans regarded the settlements of the treaty as harsh even though they suffered less than some of their allies. Both the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary had collapsed and ceased to exist, while Germany was still a strong viable nation. The Central Power's leaders had hoped for a sort of equality of nations as pointed out by President Wilson's principles. Instead, a clause in the treaty (Article 231) clearly laid all of the guilt for World War I on Germany and her allies.

Germany suffered substantial land losses along its western and eastern frontiers. The treaty set up the Rhineland as a demilitarized area to be occupied by French troops for a period of fifteen years. A new, independent Polish state was given much land from Prussia to give the Poles an outlet to the sea. Outside of Europe, Germany had to surrender all its colonies, which were taken by the League of Nations and distributed among France, Great Britain, Japan, and a few other countries.

As harsh as these territorial implements were the disarmament treatments were even more overbearing on Germany's health as a country. The army was not allowed to exceed one hundred thousand soldiers, all of who had to be long-term volunteers with no reserve force allowed. "Germany was left, as even the Allies admitted, with something closer to a police force than an army" (Macmillan 176). The General Staff that led Germany through the war was disbanded and materials productions were severely limited. The German navy was reduced to a pathetic small few ships with no submarines being allowed into their fleet. The air force was completely eradicated. Then came the payments for the cost of the war, which seemed only fair to the allies, because Germany had started the war in the Allies eyes. Much suffering had been dolled out on both sides and the cost of the war was staggering.

No definitive amount was set at the signing of the treaty, but the Allies decided that Germany was only to pay for actual damages, not the costs of waging war. Effectively the victors were asking Germany to sign a blank check and to pay later when the total had been figured out. The Germans called the treaty a Diktat-a dictated peace. By May 1, 1921 Germany was to pay in cash the sum of billions of dollars. It was soon found out that a stripped down Germany would not be able to fulfill the obligations delegated towards the country by the treaty. The war and subsequent peace had taken its toll on the German currency.

The unsatisfactory repayment conditions led the Weimar Republic's leading statesman, Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann, to enter into a series of agreements known as the Locarno Pact in 1925. This pact did not overturn the Treaty of Versailles but further committed Germany to the treaty with a few conditions. The reparation payments were to be scaled down to facilitate payment. A major turn of events came when Stresemann and the other leading diplomats of Europe, attending the Pact talks, agreed that the nations of the entire European continent should work for a general program of disarmament. Germany argued that by doing this the disarmament requirements of the Treaty of Versailles forced upon them would not seem so harsh and be easier to bear.

This lasted for a few years, but deep down the Germans hated the Treaty of Versailles and a change was needed to help Germany out of a deep recession. The Nazi movement thrived on this hatred and found momentum in their rise to power with Adolf Hitler. Yet by the time Hitler rose to power in 1933, Germany was freed of its reparation obligations and only the military requirements remained in place.

Failing of Versailles and Hitler's Rise to Power

The two major guarantors of the peace settlement, Great Britain and France, found their task of enforcing the treaty difficult due to frequently conflicting foreign policies. A greater difficulty rested in the fact that the United States and Russia never officially recognized the treaty and therefore took little interest in upholding the settlement. This is ironic in that one of the leading statesmen, President Wilson, who had contributed so much to the formation of the treaty now turned America's back in isolation from Europe. Russia, now in the hands of the Bolsheviks, was concerned with promoting worldwide revolution. Despite all these handicaps both Great Britain and France, with the support of Italy, managed to uphold the Treaty of Versailles until 1935 when they started to give way to the demands of Hitler's Germany.

During a disarmament conference in Geneva in 1933 containing sixty nations, Hitler began causing trouble for the other nations. German representatives vetoed all efforts of compromise and also convincing the delegations in Geneva not to count its paramilitary Nazi storm troopers as soldiers. As the disagreements in Geneva were on going Hitler continued the clandestine manufacture of German arms. In October Hitler withdrew Germany from the conference blaming the other countries at hindering a successful resolution. Nine days later Germany withdrew from the League of Nations, which Stresemann had entered during his reign as chancellor. Europe continued to isolate Germany. The Soviet Union became a member of the League of Nations and quickly entered into an anti-German bloc with France and her allies. Even Benito Mussolini, Fascist Dictator of Italy, and once an ally with Germany seemed to be turning his back on Germany. In 1935 Rome and Paris signed an agreement that settled disputes on African colonies but in reality the treaty was directed against the renewed threat of Nazi Germany.

Hitler, feeling this isolation, officially declared in March that his country would no longer abide by the disarmament clauses of the Treaty of Versailles, and promptly began a full rearmament. The League of Nations did nothing but mildly condemning the action as a precursor to war. Great Britain was too concerned with domestic matters and the new President of France, Pierre Laval, was concerned with Moscow relations. Mussolini was preparing his war against Ethiopia. With all of this going on in Europe Hitler refortified the Rhineland with German troops almost one year after he withdrew Germany from the League of Nations. This act not only destroyed the Treaty of Versailles but the Locarno Pact as well.

Conclusion

The German military reoccupation of the Rhineland was a flagrantly illegal act; it clearly violated Articles 42 and 43 of the Versailles Treaty. France had initially hoped to detach the Rhineland from Germany, but America and England preferred a demilitarized buffer zone between the two. The English and Americans had given France a security guarantee for this zone in a separate treaty in June 1919. When France called upon her British ally for support in opposing the German move, the British rejected the use of force and economic sanctions. Britain insisted on negotiation since the Rhineland was of no real interest to the British. When France and Britain called upon the United States to condemn the German action, America refused and crept further into isolation. The lack of any military action confirmed Hitler's belief that France, Britain, and the United States could be blackmailed by the threat of war. The Versailles Treaty and the Locarno Pact were effectively dead. The failure of the Western powers to act in 1936 helped to set the stage for the next World War.

The onset of World War II was a direct result of the mishandled Treaty of Versailles. The severe economic pressure of a democratic Germany eventually gave in to the radical ideals of the National Socialist party. The economic pressure was due to the harsh demands of the economically ignorant Treaty of Versailles. "It is an extraordinary fact that the fundamental economic problems of a Europe starving and disintegrating before their eyes, was the one question in which it was impossible to arouse interest of the Four" (Keynes 226). For these reasons the Treaty of Versailles should be considered one of the modern world's greatest blunders that cost the lives of millions throughout the world.

Bibliography

• Coetzee, Frans and Marilyn. World War I: A History in Documents. Oxford University Press, 2002.
• Keynes, Maynard. The Economic Consequences of Peace, Revised, 2003.
• Macmillan, Margaret. Paris 1919. Random House, Inc., New York, 2001.
• The Council of Four. Treaty of Versailles. Paris, 1919.