Treaty of Versailles

Introduction:
The Treaty of Versailles was the most important of the peace treaties of World War
I which was signed in the palace of Versailles in Paris. It ended the state of
war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919 in
the Palace of Versailles, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz
Ferdinand, which led to the war it took six months of Allied negotiations at the Paris
Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. The treaty was registered by the
Secretariat of the League of Nations on 21 October 1919.

Background:
First World War:
War broke out unexpectedly following the July Crisis in 1914. Austria-Hungary
declared war on Serbia, followed quickly by the entry of most European powers into
the First World War. Two alliances faced off, the Central Powers (led by Germany)
and the Triple Entente (led by Britain, France and Russia). Other countries entered
as fighting stormed widely across Europe, as well as the Middle
East, Africa and Asia. In 1917, the new Russian Soviet Federative Socialist
Republic under Vladimir Lenin in March 1918 signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk,
amounting to a surrender that was highly favorable to Germany. Sensing victory
before the American Expeditionary Forces could be ready, Germany now shifted
forces to the Western Front and tried to overwhelm the Allies. It failed. Instead, the
Allies won decisively on the battlefield and forced an armistice in November 1918
that resembled a surrender.

Us Peace Terms & 14 Points:

The United States entered the war against the Central Powers in 1917 and
President Woodrow Wilson largely shaped the peace terms. His war aim was to
detach the war from nationalistic disputes and ambitions. On 8 January 1918, Wilson
issued the Fourteen Points. They outlined a policy of free trade, open agreements,
and democracy. While the term was not used, self-determination was assumed. It
called for a negotiated end to the war, international disarmament, the withdrawal of
the Central Powers from occupied territories, the creation of a Polish state, the
redrawing of Europe's borders along ethnic lines, and the formation of a League of
Nations to guarantee the political independence and territorial integrity of all
states. It called for a just and democratic peace uncompromised by
territorial annexation. The Fourteen Points were based on the research of the Inquiry,
a team of about 150 advisors led by foreign-policy advisor Edward M. House, into
the topics likely to arise in the expected peace conference.

Armistice:
During the autumn of 1918, the Central Powers began to collapse. Desertion rates
within the German army began to increase, and civilian strikes drastically reduced
war production. On the Western Front, the Allied forces launched the Hundred Days
Offensive and conclusively conquered the German western armies. Sailors of
the Imperial German Navy at Kiel mutinied, which prompted uprisings in Germany,
which became known as the German Revolution. The German government tried to
obtain a peace settlement based on the Fourteen Points, and maintained it was on
this basis that they surrendered. Following negotiations, the Allied powers and
Germany signed an armistice, which came into effect on 11 November while
German forces were still positioned in France and Belgium.

Occupation:
The terms of the armistice called for an immediate evacuation of German troops
from occupied Belgium, France, and Luxembourg within fifteen days. In addition,
it established that Allied forces would occupy the Rhineland. In late 1918, Allied
troops entered Germany and began the occupation

Blockade:
Both Germany and Great Britain were dependent on imports of food and raw
materials, most of which had to be shipped across the Atlantic Ocean. The Blockade
of Germany (1914–1919) was a naval operation conducted by the Allied Powers to
stop the supply of raw materials and foodstuffs reaching the Central Powers. The
German Kaiserliche Marine was mainly restricted to the German Bight and
used commerce raiders and unrestricted submarine warfare for a counter-blockade.
The German Board of Public Health in December 1918 stated that 763,000
German civilians had died during the Allied blockade, although an academic study
in 1928 put the death toll at 424,000 people.
The blockade was maintained for eight months after the Armistice in November
1918, into the following year of 1919. Foodstuffs imports into Germany were
controlled by the Allies after the Armistice with Germany until Germany signed the
Treaty of Versailles in June 1919. In March 1919, Churchill informed the House of
Commons, that the ongoing blockade was a success and "Germany is very near
starvation." From January 1919 to March 1919, Germany refused to agree to Allied
demands that Germany surrender its merchant ships to Allied ports to transport food
supplies. Some Germans considered the armistice to be a temporary termination of
the war and knew, if fighting broke out again, their ships would be seized. Over the
winter of 1919, the situation became distressed and Germany finally agreed to
surrender its fleet in March. The Allies then allowed for the import of 270,000 tons
of foodstuffs.

Negotiations:
Talks between the Allies to establish a common negotiating position started on 18
January 1919, at the French Foreign Ministry in Paris. Initially, 70 delegates from
27 nations participated in the negotiations. Russia was excluded due to their signing
of a separate peace (the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk) and early withdrawal from the war.
Furthermore, German negotiators were excluded to deny them an opportunity to
divide the Allies diplomatically.
Initially, a "Council of Ten" (comprising two delegates each from Britain, France,
the United States, Italy, and Japan) met officially to decide the peace terms. This
council was replaced by the "Council of Five", formed from each country's foreign
ministers, to discuss minor matters. French Prime Minister, Italian Prime Minister,
British Prime Minister, and United States President formed the "Big Four" (at one
point becoming the "Big Three" following the temporary withdrawal of Orlando).
These four men met in 145 closed sessions to make all the major decisions, which
were later ratified by the entire assembly. The minor powers attended a weekly
"Plenary Conference" that discussed issues in a general forum but made no
decisions. These members formed over 50 commissions that made various
recommendations, many of which were incorporated into the final text of the treaty.
Treaty of Versailles Terms:

The “Big Four” leaders of the victorious Western nations Wilson of the
United States, David Lloyd George of Great Britain, Georges
Clemenceau of France and, to a lesser extent, Vittorio Orlando of Italy
dominated the peace negotiations in Paris. Germany and the other defeated
powers Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey were not represented at the
Paris Peace Conference. Also absent was Russia, which had foug ht as one
of the Allied powers until 1917, when, following the Russian Revolution,
the country’s new Bolshevik government concluded a separate peace with
Germany and withdrew from the conflict.

The Big four themselves had competing objectives in Paris Clemenceau’s

main goal was to protect France from yet another attack by Germany. He
wanted heavy compensations from Germany as a way of limiting German
economic recovery after the war and minimizing this possibility.

Lloyd George, on the other hand, saw the rebuilding of Germany as a priority
in order to reestablish the nation as a strong trading partner for Great Britain.
For his part, Orlando wanted to expand Italy’s influence and shape it into a
major power that could hold its own alongside the other great nations.

Wilson opposed Italian territorial demands, as well as previously existing

arrangements regarding territory between the other Allies instead, he wanted
to create a new world order along the lines of his Fourteen Points. The other
leaders saw Wilson as too unexperienced and idealistic, and his principles
were difficult to translate into policy.

In the end, the European Allies imposed harsh peace terms on Germany,
forcing the nation to surrender around 10 percent of its territory and all of
its overseas possessions. Other key provisions of the Treaty of
Versailles called for the demilitarization and occupation of the Rhineland,
limited Germany’s army and navy, forbade it to maintain an air force, and
required it to conduct war crimes trials against Kaiser Wilhelm II and other
leaders for their aggression.

Most importantly, Article 231 of the treaty, better known as the “war guilt
clause,” forced Germany to accept full responsibility for starting World War
I and pay enormous reparations for Allied war losses.

Treaty of Versailles Leads to WWII:

The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, exactly five years
after the Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz
Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo, sparking the outbreak of the war.
Though the treaty included a covenant creating the League of Nations, an
international organization aimed at preserving peace, the harsh terms
imposed on Germany helped ensure that peace would not last for long.
Germans were furious about the treaty, seeing it as a instruction, or dictated peace;
they bitterly resented the sole blame of war being placed at their feet. The
nation’s burden of reparations eventually topped 132 billion gold Reichsmarks,
the equivalent of some $33 billion, a sum so great that no one expected Germany to
be able to pay in full; in fact, economists like John Maynard Keynes predicted the
European economy would collapse if it did.
Keynes was not the only prominent critic of the Treaty of Versailles: The French
military leader Ferdinand Foch refused to attend the signing ceremony, as he thought
the treaty didn’t do enough to secure against a future German threat, while the
U.S. Congress failed to ratify the Treaty of Versailles , and later concluded a
separate peace with Germany. The United States would never join the short-lived
League of Nations.
The Treaty of Versailles, which ended WWI, led to the start of WWII, less than 20
years later, because of how harshly it treated Germany and how angry Germans were
about this.
When the Treaty of Versailles was written, the Allies (particularly France and
England) were very angry at Germany and wanted to punish it as harshly as they
could. They took away all of Germany’s colonies. They prohibited Germany from
having a full military. They forced Germany to admit all guilt for the war and they
required Germany to pay a large amount of money in reparations to the Allies.
After WWI, Germans were very upset about the terms of the Treaty of
Versailles. They felt that the treaty was extremely unfair to them. Germans wanted
to get revenge on the Allies. In addition, they wanted to make their country strong
again. They felt that it was unfair that they had been deprived of their empire and
their ability to have a strong military.
The Germans’ anger about this helped bring Adolf Hitler and the Nazis to
power. Hitler and the Nazis promised that they would make Germany great
again. They said that they knew how to build the country again and make the Allies
back down. Because Germans were so angry about the Treaty, they were willing to
accept Hitler and the Nazis even with their radical ideas.
Of course, it was Hitler’s rise to power that brought WWII about. As Hitler tried to
make Germany great again, he eventually went too far and forced the Allies to go to
war with Germany. This was the start of WWII.
So, the Treaty of Versailles’s harsh terms led to German anger. This anger led to
the rise of the Nazis. This rise, led to WWII. Thus, the Treaty of Versailles led to
WWII.