Opening Statement (Nutsa)- Greetings, my fellow debaters, honorable chair.

Our side
proposition believes that the Treaty of Versailles was fair. We believe, that every term in
the Treaty was as fair as it could’ve been, compared to other treaties.

Second Statement (Shany)- We believe that the Treaty of Versailles was very fair to
Germany because Germany deserved something bad in return for even starting the war
when they invaded neutral Belgium in 1914, which broke an international law. So it was
reasonable for them to take the blame and have the war guilt, as said in the very first
term of the Treaty. It seems quite obvious that Germany deserved the disarmament in
the fourth term of the Treaty of Versailles, as the German army was limited to 100,000
men with banned armored vehicles and air forces because Germany was threatening
the British Empire and the French Empire at that time. So, under this term, Germany
would not be able to threaten them anymore, limiting any risk of violence between those
countries. And I am sure, that nobody at that time, really wanted to deal with more
violence.

(Continued) Second Statement (Giorgi)- Under the third term, Germany certainly lost
territory in the Versailles settlement- 10 percent of its land, all colonies, 12.5 percent of
its population. However, it could have been a lot harsher. Clemenceau wanted Germany
to be broken up into small states, but he never achieved his goal, so instead of
complaining about how harsh the Treaty was, Germany should've felt lucky enough to
be treated loosely by a hard and tough politician, such as Clemenceau, also known as
‘The Tiger’. In fact, when we look at the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which Germany forced
Russia to sign in 1918, we can see that Germany was much harsher in its terms with
Russia than the Allies were with Germany at Versailles.

Closing statement (Melissa) -

Given the facts and circumstances provided earlier by my fellow debaters, the answer is
clear: the Treaty of Versailles was fair. As Germany started the war and invaded neutral
Belgium, and had done a lot of damage to France and Britain, Germany had to pay for
what it has done. The arguments against the Treaty were mainly complaints from the
German point of view at the time. But most historians, such as Margaret Macmillan, with
the benefit of hindsight, believe that the Treaty could have been a lot harsher. We put
our faith into the historians and therefore this convinces us that the Treaty of Versailles
was fair. Thank you!

Rebattle (unfair points)- ONLY USING THIS FOR REBUTTAL:

● Germany’s non-presentation in the conference
○ Rebut - Germany didn’t have a say because they surrendered, and the
spoils of war dictate that losers or loser countries do not decide their fate.
● Too much reparation
○ Rebut- Germany had to pay for what they started and they did do a lot of
damage with the unrestricted submarine warfare
● No countries were disarmed other than Germany
○ Rebut - It is not the Treaty of Versailles fault that no countries that
Germany had disarmed. The country leaders do not want their countries to
disarm and they put their country's interests first by being selfish and not
wanting their precious army’s size to be limited. This is really not setting
an example to other countries to convince them to disarm and this is
making Germany feel aggravated towards others when they are the only
ones who actually disarmed.