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Treaty of Versailles

Treaty of Peace between the Allied and Associated Powers and Germany
Cover of the English version
Signed	28 June 1919
Location	Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles, Paris, France
Effective	10 January 1920
Condition	Ratification by Germany and three Principal Allied Powers.
Signatories	Central Powers Germany Allied Powers United States British Empire  France Italy Japan Others Belgium Bolivia Brazil China Cuba Ecuador  Greece Guatemala Haiti The Hedjaz Honduras Liberia Nicaragua Panama Peru  Poland Portugal Roumania The Serb-Croat-Slovene State Siam  Czechoslovakia and Uruguay
Depositary	French Government
Languages	French and English
Full text
Treaty of Versailles at Wikisource

The Treaty of Peace between the Allied and Associated Powers and Germany, commonly known as the Treaty of Versailles, was one of the peace treaties signed at the Paris Peace Conference following the cessation of the First World War. The treaty ended the state of war between the German Empire and the Allied Powers. While the armistice, signed on 11 November 1918, ended the actual fighting, it took six months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. The treaty was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles, just outside of Paris. The other countries of the Central Powers, the allies of Germany, concluded peace with the victors via separate treaties. The treaty was registered by the Secretariat of the League of Nations on 21 October 1919, and was printed in The League of Nations Treaty Series.

Of the many provisions of the treaty, the main required Germany to disarm, limit her military forces, make territorial concessions, and to pay reparations to various countries. The treaty also called for the creation of the League of Nations. Article 231 was one of the most controversial points of the treaty. It required "Germany [to] accept the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage" during the war. Germans saw this clause as taking full responsibility for the cause of the war, and the article later became known as the 'war guilt clause'. The result, of competing and sometimes conflicting goals among the victors, was a compromise that left none contented. The treaty neither pacified, conciliated, permanently weakened, or reconcile Germany and caused massive resentment. The problems that arose from the treaty, and attempts to stabilize Europe led to the Locarno Treaties, which improved relations between Germany and the other European Powers, and the renegotiation of the reparation payments resulting in the Dawes Plan, the Young Plan, and finally the abolishment of reparations at the Lausanne Conference of 1932.

Contemporary opinion on the treaty varied from too harsh to too lenient. Germans saw the treaty as assigning them responsibility for the entire war and worked hard to undermine this perceived error. Historians, from the 1920s to present, have demonstrated that guilt was not associated with Article 231, and that the clause, which was also included in the treaties signed by Germany's allies mutatis mutandis, was purely a prerequisite to allow a legal basis to be laid out for the reparation payments that were to be made. Critics of the reparations considered them too harsh, counterproductive, damaging to the German economy, and a "Carthaginian peace". However, historical consensus considers the reparations to be largely chimerical (designed to look imposing to mislead the public), which were well within Germany's ability to pay, and that had little direct impact on the German economy. Furthermore, historians have highlighted that Germany received substantial aid, via loans, to make payment and that in the end paid only a fraction of the total sum with the cost of repairs and pensions being shifted to the victors of the war rather than Germany. In assessing the long term impact of the treaty, historians have determined that the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party was not an inevitable consequence of the treaty and likewise neither was the Second World War. Overall, ...

territory - cons: going to Poland, Pros: people were given a say, western territorial losses were nothing really, Germany reconciled over Alsace-Lorraine self determination - cons: couldn't be applied across the board, and Germany was not given the same say. Pros: first time in European history ethnic groups had a say military - cons: no one could agree on anything, no one disarmed, loopholes and German determination to ignore treaty resulted in immediate secret rearming

Historians have judged the treaty to have been lenient and fair, not as harsh as it could have been Overall, critics believed the treaty to have been too harsh, , and deemed the reparation figure to be excessive and counterproductive. However, supporters believed that the treaty had not caused permanent lasting negative effects and that co-operation between nations or the League of Nations would be able to rectify any and all problems.

Historians have demonstrated that a myth was fostered, by German propaganda, during the inter-war years that treaty was unduly harsh and that this myth is still commonly held today by the public and remains the key lesson taught in school textbooks. Finally, historians have noted when the treaty is placed in context and compared with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which Germany imposed upon Soviet Russia in early 1918, that the Versailles treaty was extremely lenient.

Background

The borders of Eastern Europe, as drawn up in Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

In 1914, the First World War broke out. For the next four years fighting waged across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia resulting in most of the world being dragged into the war. In 1917, the Russian Empire was rocked by two revolutions that brought about the collapse of the Imperial government and the rise of the Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin.

On 8 January 1918, the President of the United States Woodrow Wilson issued a statement known as the Fourteen Points. The statement called for a diplomatic end to the war, international disarmament, the withdrawal of Central Power forces from the lands they had occupied up until this point, the creation of a Polish state, the redrawing of borders in Europe along ethnic lines, and the formation of a League of Nations to afford "mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike". For his efforts Wilson was awarded the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize, and his speech ultimately resulted in the Germans attempting to broker a peace based on these points.

After further fighting on the Eastern Front, the new Soviet government of Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the German Empire on 3 March 1918. This treaty forced Russia to yield sovereignty of Russian-Poland and the Baltic States to Germany, recognize the independence of the Ukraine, pay six billion Marks (ℳ) in reparations among many other stipulations. The German "imposition of harsh terms on Russia ... just two months after the announcement of the Fourteen Points seemed ... to demonstrate that German had no right to demand or expect leniency."

In the autumn of 1918, the Austrian-Hungarian Empire collapsed, and the various ethnic groups of the empire rose up to establish their own successor states and gain full independence. In Germany, the rate of desertion within the military increased as did civilian strikes. On the Western Front, the Allied forces had launched the Hundred Days Offensive that decisively defeated the German military. During this period, the German navy, unwilling to be sent on a suicidal climatic battle, mutinied resulting in further uprisings across Germany. This coupled with rising civilian social tension and defeat of the military, resulted in the German Revolution and the German government attempting to broker a peace based on Wilson's Fourteen Points. The war ended on 11 November, with German forces still in France and Belgium and before allied forces had entered German territory.

In late 1918, a Polish government was formed and an independent Poland proclaimed. In December, Poles launched an uprising within the German province of Posen. Fighting lasted until February when an armistice was signed leaving the area in Polish hands, but technically still German. In late 1918, Allied troops entered Germany and initiated the occupation of the Rhineland. The defeat of the Central Powers resulted in the Paris Peace Conference. The conference aimed to establish peace between the war's belligerents and establish the post-war world. The Treaty of Versailles formed part of the conference, and dealt solely with Germany. The treaty, along with the others that were signed during the Paris Peace Conference, were each named after the suburb of Paris they were signed in.

Negotiations

Historian Jim Powell comments that the British "favored a neutral site like Geneva, Switzerland" for the peace negotiations to take place at, however the French wanted to hold the conference in Paris, a position the Americans supported.

The 'Big Four': (L - R) Prime Minister David Lloyd George (Great Britain) Premier Vittorio Orlando (Italy), Premier Georges Clemenceau (France), President Woodrow Wilson (United States).

Negotiations between the Allied powers started on 18 January 1919, in the Salle de l'Horloge at the French Foreign Ministry, on the Quai d'Orsay in Paris. Initially, 70 delegates of 26 nations participated in the negotiations. Representatives from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic were not invited, due to their early withdrawal from the war. Bernadotte Schmitt highlights that "the tradition of peace conferences was that belligerents met on terms of equality", however as the Allies were at odds with each other they did not invite Germany thus avoiding Germany attempting to play one country off against the other and unfairly influencing the proceedings. Norman Davies declares a German delegation was only invited to "sign the Treaty ... without comment" although as historian P.M.H. Bell points out "the whole object of winning the war was to impose upon Germany terms which she would never accept voluntarily".

It rapidly became evident that the major powers would make most of the decisions. After some debate, it was decided that a 'Council of Ten', comprising the heads of government and foreign ministers of the five major victors (the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Italy, and the Empire of Japan), would meet in private sessions to negotiate the terms of the peace. The minor powers would attend "a weekly Plenary Conference, during which treaty-related issues would be discussed in a general forum". These members "were also given the opportunity to form commissions that were entrusted with studying and making recommendations regarding various aspects of the peace settlement". Over fifty committees and commissions were founded "whose findings on a host of issues formed the basis for most of the provisions that found their way into the treaties". The 'Council of Ten' "proved too cumbersome for any real progress" and in late March was replaced. The foreign ministers "continued to meet in a separate body", known as the 'Council of Five', to discuss "less important matters" while the heads of state from America, Britain, France, and Italy, dubbed the 'Council of Four', met in informal meetings to debate the major issues. Temporarily, the 'Council of Four' became the 'Big Three' when the Italian prime minister left the conference.

Overall Allied aims

The German General Staff in 1917. Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg (left) and General Erich Ludendorff (right) stand with Kaiser Wilhelm II (center).

Georges Clemenceau, the French Prime Minister, is quoted as saying "if only we could get rid of Germany, there would be peace in Europe." However, historian Gerhard Weinberg comments that regardless "of even the harshest terms proposed ... the continued existence of a German state, however truncated or restricted, was taken for granted by all" despite how Germany was formed or their long-term plans for Belgium. Wilson commented "We do not wish to destroy German and we could not do so if we wished." The British position on the future of Germany was that it should remain to be "a political counterweight to France and to resume her prewar role as Britain’s chief trading partner."

Weinberg further notes that Germany was viewed, as a result of the long and bitter war and the number of nations needed to defeat her, as "extraordinarily dangerous to the welfare, even existence, of other" European nations. As a result, the victors sought to break 'Prussian militarism' by dissolving the German General Staff, which was "the brain and nerve center of the army". With Germany disarmed and her general staff dissolved, this would "render possible the initiation of a general limitation of the armaments of all nations". To further this goal and due to an universal conviction among the victors "that Germany had misgoverned its colonies", it was believed "it would be dangerous to restore the colonies because Germany might try to raise troops in the colonies to offset the reduction imposed upon it" Due to Germany’s invasion of Belgium, and her conduct in that country, coupled with the devastation brought upon French soil brought about the want to "limit German power in the future" so other nations could survive.

Professor Ian Beckett sums up the goals of the three main powers: The French wanted "a punitive settlement", the British were after international stability, and the Americans desired "to create a better world based on principles of internationalism, democracy and self-determination." Overall, it was "hoped that a just and lasting peace would be concluded, that the war which [was] won would be the last war."

French aims

No other country "had suffered more at the hands of the Reich ... than France". France suffered 1.3 million soldiers killed – "fully one out of four French men ages 18-30" – along with 400,000 civilians. France "lost a significantly higher percentage of its prewar population than any other nation in the conflict, including Russia." In addition, the country had "also sustained considerable more physical damage than any other nation". German troops had devastated France, including "France’s most industrialized region and the source of most of its coal and iron ore, the Northeast." "Adding insult to injury, during the final days of the war" mines had been flooded, and railroads, bridges, and factories destroyed. Twice, within the space of fifty years, Germany had invaded France. Therefore, Georges Clemenceau's primary objective "was above all to ensure the future security of France against Germany, which he was sure would be intent on revenge". Additional goals included weakening Germany economically, militarily, territorially and to make France "Europe’s leading steel producer". Clemenceau described France's position best by telling Wilson: "America is far away, protected by the ocean. Not even Napoleon himself could touch England. You are both sheltered; we are not".

An example of the devastation by the war. Delville Wood, France, 1916.

Originating with a proposal from Marshal Ferdinand Foch, the French wanted "a strategic frontier on the Rhine". Only a frontier on the Rhine "could protect France from a repetition of 1870 and 1914" and offset the various weaknesses of France when compared to Germany. This position was adamantly rejected by the American and British representatives, and it took two months of negotiations for the French to back down and accept an alternative. The British pledged that they would provide an "immediate alliance" with France if Germany attacked again, and Woodrow Wilson "agreed to put to the United States Senate a similar proposal". As Clemenceau held personal doubts if the annexation of the Rhineland would actually benefit France and recognized that France had survived due to an alliance, he could not afford to alienate himself from his allies. He had proclaimed to the Chamber of Deputies in December 1918, that his primarily goal was to maintain an alliance with both countries. Consequently, Clemenceau agreed to the offer, under the provision that the Rhineland would be occupied by France for 15 years (negotiated down by the Anglo-Americans from 30 years), and that Germany would accept the Rhineland as a demilitarized zone. In the long run the American Senate never ratified these decisions, and historian Anthony Lentin argues that when the terms were put to the Germans, they "were maximum demands which might be reduced, but could not be augmented".

In addition, France wanted to impose "heavy reparations on Germany" for two reasons: to make Germany pay for the damage caused during the war, and to weaken Germany for the considerable future. To further weaken Germany and to "compensate for the hundreds of French mines and factories destroyed during the war", France wanted the "iron ore and coal-rich Saar Valley" to be annexed to France. France, along with the British Dominions and Belgium, "were thoroughly opposed" to the concept of mandates and favored outright annexation of Germany’s ex-colonies. Economist John Maynard Keynes argued that "the policy of France" was "to set the clock back and undo what ... progress ... Germany had accomplished." Lentin counters this point by noting that Clemenceau "was too much a realist to argue for" such a position, yet he "sought 'physical guarantees' to prevent yet another invasion". Keynes continued his argument stating by arguing for the annexation of territory, France would be able to curtail the German population and economy. "If France could seize, even in part, what Germany was compelled to drop, the inequality of strength between the two rivals for European hegemony might be remedied for generations."

British aims

British Prime Minister David Lloyd George.

William Bullitt, an American delegate at the Paris Peace Conference and who later resigned his position in protest of Wilson, stated that the British went to the conference with a number of secret aims that were not admitted publically. They were "the destruction of the German Navy, the confiscation of the German merchant marine, the elimination of Germany as an economic rival, the extraction of all possible indemnities from Germany, the annexation of German East Africa ... the Cameroons, [and] the annexation of all German colonies in the Pacific south of the Equator." Bullitt concluded, post-treaty, that "all of these secret war aims ... were achieved in one form or another by the Treaty of Versailles."

Prime Minister David Lloyd George was a Coalition Liberal who was reelected at the end of 1918. One of the party slogans, during the election, was "squeeze the German lemon 'til the pips squeak" and the general public were not in favor of a "soft peace" as reflected in the British press at the time. The general public opinion was that there should be a "just peace", but one that "would leave Germany powerless to repeat the aggression of 1914 and a peace which would compel it to pay for the damage" although those of a "liberal and advanced opinion" instead shared Wilson’s ideals of a peace of reconciliation.

In private, however, Lloyd George opposed the hawkish mentality of the public and attempted to steer "a middle course between Clemenceau’s demands and Wilson’s Fourteen Points" as he "recognized that at some time in the future, Europe would have to reconcile with Germany." While he supported imposing reparations on Germany, he did not want to do so under terms that would cripple the German economy as this would have a knock on effect across Europe. Furthermore, he wanted Germany to recover so they would remain a viable economic power, and a major trading partner. In arguing that Britain’s war pensions and widows allowances should be included in the German reparation sum, this "ensured that a substantial share would go to the British Empire".

The future security of Britain and the European balance of power were also key points Lloyd George attempted to address. As Britain and France were old rivals, "Lloyd George intended to thwart France’s attempt to establish itself as the dominant European Power." A non-crippled Germany would be able to act as a buffer to the French and a deterrent to "Bolshevik Russia", thus maintaining the balance of power "in which no single nation ... [would be] able to dominate". This policy, it was believed, was in the best interests of British national security and European peace. Furthermore, Lloyd George wanted to neutralize the German navy so that he Royal Navy "would once again be the greatest naval power in the world."

The German colonial empire was to be dissolved, "preferably ceding some of its territorial possessions to Britain", yet Lloyd George was an sincere advocate "of the principle of mandates" and wanted to place the German colonies "under the jurisdiction of the League of Nations." However, this position was strongly opposed by the Dominions of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

American aims

Main article: Fourteen Points

Five men sit posing for a photograph.

Woodrow Wilson and the American delegation.

Jim Powell calls Wilson, the "weakest of the major players at Versailles". He notes that Edward M. House and the United States Secretary of State Robert Lansing both advised Wilson, who was not a skilled negotiator, not to attend and instead send a representative "who had not been authorized to depart form the Fourteen Points" thereby the Americans could "maintain a strong negotiating position". Instead, Wilson "insisted on going ... because it was his dream ... to play on a world stage". Walter McDougall furthers this point, arguing that "Wilson ventured into matters far beyond his understanding". In November 1918, the Republican Party won the Senate election by a slim margin. Wilson, a Democrat, refused to take any Republican senators with him thus encountered opposition "when the treaty came before the Senate". Schmitt notes that Wilson was essentially powerless and "the Republican opposition ... [gave] Wilson’s opponents at Paris [the understanding] ... that he did not have the support of the American people."

Schmitt argues that the American position was in "favor of a moderate peace, a peace of reconciliation, or as [Wilson] called it, 'a peace without victory,' by which he meant a peace without the punishment which victory sometimes induces governments to inflict." Powell takes a more cynical point of view. He comments that Wilson posed "as a generous peacemaker while letting Clemenceau do the dirty work for revenge they both wanted." Lentin goes further. He notes "by March 1919" Wilson had concluded "Germany deserved a hard, deterrent peace in view of her 'very great offence against civilization' and that the League of Nations would iron out injustices." Daniel Smith observes that "the Fourteen Points were 'a bold psychological move' that boosted American and Allied morale and weakened to some degree the will and temper of the Central Powers. However, though 'sufficiently vague and idealistic for war propaganda purposes,' ... Versailles would prove them 'inadequate for peacemaking'"

The first priority, and "most important goal" of Wilson, "was the establishment of an international peacekeeping organization, or League of Nations." It was believed that such a body would "bring an end to all war", provide a forum to discuss adjustments or hammer out any flaws within the various treaties of the Paris Peace Conference, and deal with any future problems arising in Europe due to the end of the war and the rise of new states. Keynes comments "It was commonly believed ... that the President had thought out ... a comprehensive scheme not only for the League of Nations, but for the embodiment of the Fourteen Points in an actual Treaty of Peace. But in fact the President had thought out nothing; when it came to practice his ideas were nebulous and incomplete. He had no plan, no scheme, no constructive ideas whatever ... ."

In regards to the German colonial empire, Alan Sharp notes that the victors "simply wanted to annex the territories their troops had wrestled from the enemy" yet "to Wilson ... outright annexation constituted a clear violation of the fundamental principles of justice and human rights that he believed must underpin any truly equitable and lasting peace settlement." Wilson favored the native people having "the right of self-determination" and the major powers – under League of Nation oversight – would take control of these regions via mandates. The major powers "would act as a disinterested trustee over the region, promoting the welfare of its inhabitants in a variety of ways" until they were able to govern themselves. Sharp notes that "the mandate plan had prejudicial overtones in its assumption that the colonies' indigenous populations could not be entrusted with self-rule without first being tutored". In spite of this position, to ensure that Japan did not refuse to join the League of Nations, Wilson was in favor of turning over Shandong to Japan rather than return the area to China.

Treaty content

Further information: Full text of the treaty

Part of the German delegation at Versailles. Left to right: Professor Dr. Walther Schücking, Reichspostminister Johannes Giesberts, Justice Minister Dr. Otto Landsberg, Foreign Minister Ulrich Graf von Brockdorff-Rantzau, Prussian State President Robert Leinert, and financial advisor Dr. Carl Melchior

Dr Johannes Bell signs the Treaty of Versailles in the Hall of Mirrors, with the various Allied delegations sitting and standing in front of him.

Schmitt notes that "the treaties were drafted by hundreds of persons. Each man did his own little job and then the pieces were glued together by a few big shots, who did not fully sense the enormity of the demands". Lentin comments that the "whole package of terms was approved unamended by the Big Three without adequate co-ordination or review ... . No one had read them in full let alone discussed their cumulative effect." Lloyd George "admitted that he only received a complete copy at the last moment" and Wilson commented "I hope that during the rest of my I will have enough time to read this whole volume".

The allies declared that if the German government did not sign the treaty, the war would be resumed. This caused the collapse of the German government who were unwilling to sign the treaty, and the establishment of a new one. Gustav Bauer, the new German chancellor, sent a telegram stating his intention to sign the treaty if certain articles were withdrawn from the treaty, including articles 227, 230, and 231. The allied response was "the time for discussion is past" and announced that Germany either accept the treaty as it stood or allied forces would cross the Rhine within 24-hours. On 23 June, Bauer sent a second telegram to inform Clemenceau that a German delegation would arrive shortly to sign the treaty.

On 28 June 1919, the fifth anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which provided the immediate spark for war, the peace treaty was signed. The treaty dealt with numerous issues ranging from war crimes, the prohibition on the merging of Austria with Germany unless with the consent of the League of Nations, the freedom of navigation on major European rivers, to the returning of a Koran to the king of Hedjaz. The major points are discussed below.

Treaty requirements

Territorial changes

By the time the First World War broke out, Germany - as a single state - had only been in existence for 43 years following its official establishment in 1871. The treaty stripped Germany of 25,000 square miles of territory and 7 million people. It also required Germany to give up the gains made via the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and grant true independence to the protectorate states that had been established.

Germany after Versailles:

  Administered by the League of Nations

  Annexed or transferred to neighboring countries by the treaty, or later via plebiscite and League of Nation action

  Weimar Germany

In Western Europe, Germany was required to recognize Belgian sovereignty over the "contested territory [of] Moresnet", and cede control of the Eupen-Malmedy area. Within six months of the transfer, Belgium was required conduct a plebiscite on whether the citizens of the region wanted to remain under Belgian sovereignty or return to German control, communicate the results to the League of Nations and abide by the League’s decision. "As compensation for the destruction of" French coal-mines, Germany was to cede the output of the Saar coalmines to France and control of the region to the League of Nations for fifteen years. At the end of that period, a plebiscite would be held to establish "the sovereignty under which" the citizens of the territory "desire[d] to be placed". "Recognizing the moral obligation to redress the wrong done by Germany in 1871", the treaty "restored" the territory of Alsace-Lorraine to France reverting the outcome of 1871 Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of Frankfurt. The issue of Schleswig-Holstein was to resolved via referendum to held at a future date.

In Eastern Europe, Germany was to recognize the "complete independence of the Czecho-Slovak State" and to cede over portions of the province of Upper Silesia. Likewise, Germany had to recognize the independence of Poland and renounce "all rights and title over the territory". Portions of Upper Silesia were to be ceded to Poland, with the future to be decided via plebiscite. The province of Posen (now Poznan), which had come under Polish control during the Greater Poland Uprising, was also to be ceded to Poland. The area of Pomerania, based on historical and ethnic grounds, was transferred to Poland so that the new state could have access to the sea. This area would become known as the Polish Corridor. The sovereignty of southern section of East Prussia was to be decided via plebiscite while the East Prussian Soldau area – due to it laying astride the rail line between Warsaw and Danzig – was transferred to Poland outright without any plebiscite being required. In total, 51,800 km² (20,000 sq mi) of territory was granted to Poland at the expense of Germany. Memel was to be ceded to the Allied and Associated powers, for them to decide the territory’s future fate. Germany was to cede the city of Danzig and its surrounding area, including the delta of the Vistula River on the Baltic Sea, to the League of Nations to establish the Free City of Danzig.

Article 119 of the treaty required "Germany [to] renounce all rights, titles and privileges" over her former colonies while article 22 required that these territories would be turned into mandates entrusted to member nations to tutor and develop the regions. The former German African colonies of Togoland and German Kamerun (Cameroon) were transferred to France as mandates. Ruanda and Urundi, were allocated to Belgium as mandates, while German South-West Africa went to South Africa as a mandate, and the United Kingdom obtained German East Africa as a mandate. As compensation for the German invasion of Portugal’s African empire, Portugal was granted the Kionga Triangle, a sliver of German East Africa in northern Mozambique. Article 156 of the treaty transferred German concessions in Shandong, China, to Japan rather than returning sovereign authority to China. Furthermore, Japan was granted all German possessions in the Pacific north of the equator as mandates, while those south were granted as mandates to Australia although New Zealand took German Samoa as a mandate.

Military restrictions

The treaty was "both comprehensive and complex" in regards to the restrictions placed upon the German military. The treaty was "formulated to restrict the German army so that Germany would not be capable of conducting any offensive actions" and "in order to render possible the initiation of a general limitation of the armaments of all nations".

The treaty required Germany to demobilize, and reduce her armed forces so that by 31 March 1920, and thereafter, the army would compose no more than 100,000 men (including officers and administration personnel) within a maximum of seven infantry and three cavalry divisions. The treaty also laid out how these divisions and support units were to be organized. The general staff was to be dissolved and not reformed. The number of military schools, used to train officers, was to be limited to three: "one school per arm". Conscription was to be abolished. Enlisted men and Non-commissioned officers were to be retained for at least 12 years, and officers for at least 25 years with officers who had left the service being forbidden to attend military exercises. To prevent Germany from building up a large cadre of trained men, the number of men allowed to leave before the completion of their service was to be regulated. Civilian staff supporting the army were to be downsized and the police force reduced to its pre-war size to "only be increased to an extent corresponding to the increase of [the] population". Furthermore, paramilitary forces were forbidden.

Workmen decommission a heavy gun to comply with the treaty.

The fleet was allowed to retain six pre-dreadnought battleships, but was not allowed to exceed this figure. The fleet could not exceed six light cruisers (not exceeding 6,000 long tons (6,100 t)), twelve destroyers (not exceeding 800 long tons (810 t)) and twelve torpedo boats (not exceeding 200 long tons (200 t)) and was forbidden from having submarines. The manpower of the navy was not to exceed 15,000 men. This figure included "the manning of the fleet, coast defenses, signal stations, administration and other land services ... including officers and men of all grades and corps". In addition the officer and warrant officer strength was not allowed to exceed 1,500 men. In addition, Germany had to surrender eight battleships, eight light cruisers, forty-two destroyers, and fifty torpedo boats - not already in Allied hands - so that they could be decommissioned. Likewise, thirty-two auxiliary ships were to be disarmed and converted to merchant use.

Germany was to disarm and dismantle all fortifications west of the Rhine, and 50 km (31 mi) east of the river. Future construction was forbidden. The Rhineland was to be a demilitarized zone with the German army forbidden to enter. Likewise, all military related structures and fortifications on the islands of Heligoland and Düne were to be destroyed. Germany was prohibited from the importing or exporting of weapons, restricted on what weapons and the number the German army could stockpile and use, prohibited from the manufacture or stockpile of chemical weapons, armored cars, tanks, and military aircraft.

Reparations

Main article: World War I reparations

Article 231 stated Germany accepted responsibility for "all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies." The following articles note that Germany will compensate the Allied powers "for all the damage done to the civilian population ... and to their property during the" war. It goes on to state that a 'Reparation Commission' will "consider the resources and capacity of Germany", give the "German Government a just opportunity to be heard", and decide on the overall level of reparations Germany will pay.

Guarantees

Location of the Rhineland, Germany.

To ensure that Germany abided by the treaty, the Rhineland "together with the bridgeheads" east of the River Rhine, were to be occupied by Allied troops "for a period of fifteen years". If by that point Germany had not initiated any acts of unprovoked aggression, then a staged withdrawal would take place. First, after five years, "the bridgehead at Cologne and the territories north of a line running along the Ruhr" would be evacuated. After ten years, the bridgehead at Coblenz and all territories to the north would be evacuated. Finally, after fifteen years, all remaining forces would be withdrawn. However, if Germany was to act belligerent the occupation forces would remain for as long as needed. If, following the withdrawal of forces, Germany rescinded on the obligations imposed upon her by the treaty, then the above areas would "be reoccupied immediately".

The creation of international organizations

Part I of the treaty was the Covenant of the League of Nations, which provided for the creation of the League of Nations, an organization intended to arbitrate international disputes and thereby avoid future wars. Furthermore, Part XIII organized the establishment of the International Labour Officer, to promote "the regulation of the hours of work, including the establishment of a maximum working day and week; the regulation of the labour supply; the prevention of unemployment; the provision of an adequate living wage; the protection of the worker against sickness, disease and injury arising out of his employment; the protection of children, young persons and women; provision for old age and injury; protection of the interests of workers when employed in countries other than their own; recognition of the principle of freedom of association; the organization of vocational and technical education and other measures".

Reaction to the treaty

Among the allies

The signing of the treaty was met with roars from approval, singing and dancing from a crowd waiting outside the Palace of Versailles. Paris was the scene of celebration as people rejoiced the official end of the war. However, Georges Clemenceau "endured bitter attacks by the French Right" once the treaty was signed. He even conceded that he too was dissatisfied with the overall treaty. Historian Norrin Ripsman claims that Clemenceau’s compromises over the Rhine resulted in his defeat during the January 1920 presidential elections, however, Spencer C. Tucker notes that the political situation in France was much more complicated than that and "most observers" had "expected" Clemenceau to win. As a result of France not being able to annex the Rhineland and for "what he regarded as ... Clemenceau’s trading away French security in order to please the United States and Britain", Marshal Foch declared "This is not peace. It is an armistice for twenty years." Overall, French politicians criticized the treaty for "being too lenient" although Left-wing politicians resented it for just the opposite. "As late as August 1939" some "still began their remarks on foreign affairs with a ritual condemnation of the Treaty".

Harold Nicolson, a diplomat among the British delegation, wrote in his diary "are we making a good peace?" and remained unconvinced by the treaty. General Jan Smuts, a member of the South African delegation at the peace conference, wrote to Lloyd-George (prior to the signing of the treaty) to state he believed the treaty to be unstable and declared "Are we in our sober senses or suffering from shellshock? What has become of Wilson’s 14 points?" He would go on to plead "For the sake of the future", the Germans "should not be made to sign at the point of the bayonet" and called for radical changes to the treaty. When Smuts finally signed the treaty, he issued a statement condemning the treaty and regretting that the promises of "a new international order and a fairer, better world are not written in this treaty". Lord Robert Cecil also declared that many within the Foreign Office were disappointed by the treaty. However, Lloyd George and his private secretary Philip Kerr, a politician who had "been involved in top level decision making in the United Kingdom for several years" both believed in the treaty although they also felt that "France was going to keep Europe in constant turmoil over the enforcement" of the treaty.

A British news placard announces the signing of the peace treaty.

The treaty was "received with widespread approval" in the United Kingdom, and the "average Englishman ... thought Germany got only what it deserved". As German complaints mounted "it soon came to be thought" that the treaty was "not morally binding". Schmitt notes it was "only much later that the idea grew up that the five treaties of Paris had been conceived in iniquity and deserved to be revised or forgotten" while Louise Slavicek states that John Maynard Keynes best-selling The Economic Consequences of Peace – "accurate or not" – did much to sway public opinion against the treaty. Writing in 1919, Keynes argued that the reparation figures were too high in relation to the actual damage done, that Germany would not have the capacity to pay, and that if the figures were not revised it would place "an impossible strain on the German economy" and would render impossible, the reconstruction of the European economy. The perception that a Carthaginian peace had been handed out to Germany "engendered ... a sense of guilt that sapped the will" of the British "to uphold a treaty felt to be unjust."

Edward House recorded in his diary "I am leaving Paris, after eight fateful months ... Looking at the conference in retrospect there is much to approve and much to regret. It is easy to say what should have been done, but more difficult to have found a way for doing it." He continues "To those who were saying that the Treaty is bad and should never have been made and that it will involve Europe in infinite difficulties in its enforcement, I feel like admitting it. But I would also say in reply that empires cannot be shattered and new states raised upon their ruins without disturbance. To create new boundaries is always to create new troubles ... While I should have preferred a difference peace, I doubt whether it could have been made, for the ingredients for such a peace as I would have had were lacking at Paris." He concludes his thoughts "And yet I wish we had taken the other road, even if it were less smooth, both now and afterward, than the one we took. We would at least have gone in the right direction and if those who follow us had made it impossible to go the full length of the journey planned, the responsibility would have rested with them and not with us."

In the United States, as seen via the press at the time, there was general approved of the treaty. In September 1919, while speaking on the League of Nations to a luncheon audience in Portland, Woodrow Wilson concluded his speech stating people could now say "at last the world knows America as the savior of the world!" However, Wilson’s perceived pro-British attitude and "failure to speak out" about Ireland "alienated" Irish-American support for Wilson and the League of Nations. "Other ethnic groups, especially the Italians and the Germans, annoyed with Wilson for other reasons, lent editorial support to" the Irish. Furthermore, "many Americans were disillusioned with the sacrifices of World War I and were determined not to repeat what they saw as a mistake" and the public took on an isolationist tone during the 1920s. "Reflecting the conservative internationalist perspective" Henry Cabot Lodge attacked the treaty and proposed amendments "designed to defeat the purpose of U.S. membership in the League." Lodge wanted to be able to trade with Europe, but not be entangled in "alliances or political commitments that would involve the United States in the inevitable next 'European war'". Most of the Democratic senators supported the ratification of the treaty, however there was strong opposition from the Republican Party. The Republicans were divided into groups on the issue, the most strongly opposed were known as the irreconcilables. The irreconcilables opposition ranged from anti-imperialist views such as the "treaty [w]as an imperialist document that strengthened British power", general Anglophobia, concerns that the International Labor Organization would create a "socialistic supergovernment", to racist opposition on the grounds that the inclusion of nations such as Haiti and Liberia would create "a colored league of nations". Opposition to Article X of the Covenant of the League of Nations was a primary theme for the Republican party. As Wilson was unwilling to compromise with his critics or his supporters, who urged for concessions, support collapsed resulting in the Senate refusing to ratify the treaty or America’s role in the League of Nations. Bell comments that "having done so much to win the war and shape the peace treaties that followed" America withdrew back across the Atlantic "not into 'isolation' ... but into an indifference towards the European balance of power which came only too naturally to a people who found the phrase itself distasteful."

The Chinese "were so incensed" by the allocation of Shantung to Japan, that they refused to sign the treaty. Chen Duxiu, who later became the first leader of the Chinese Communist Party, saw the treaty as a "national humiliation" for China. Bruce Elleman argues that the treatment of China resulted in closer Sino-Soviet relations and the communist party becoming more popular in China than western democracy.

On the whole, there was a prevailing sense of criticism towards the treaty among the population of the victors. The treaty was "criticized at the time and for the next twenty years for its harshness, its economic errors, and its inherent instability". Yet, at the same time, the "widely perceived" problems of the treaty were "thought to be not beyond remedy". There was faith in the League of Nations, and it was hoped that it or a revival "of something like the nineteenth-century 'Concert of Europe', an informal grouping of the great powers" could solve Europe’s problems.

In Germany

A mass demonstration, against the Treaty of Versailles, takes place in front of the Reichstag building.

Across Germany, the treaty was met with widespread outcry. Flags were lowered to Half-mast and demonstrations took place. Germans claimed that their country had been treated unfairly by the treaty, believed that the victors of the war were acting in spite against them, that the treaty was too harsh and contradicted the Fourteen Points – on the basis of which Germany had surrendered, and disagreed with the methods of how the treaty had been formulated. The treaty was seen as a dictated peace, and was later referred to as the Diktat. Revision of the treaty "became a major objective of every German political party".

On 7 May, prior to the signing of the treaty, Count Brockdorff-Rantzau – "with the big treaty still lying unopened before him" – declared "The demand is made that we shall acknowledge that we alone are guilty of having caused the war. Such a confession in my mouth would be a lie". This position deepened once the treaty had been signed. Article 231, the so called ‘war guilt’ clause, "aroused deep resentment in Germany, where it was thought that equal (or greater) responsibility for the outbreak of the war could be found in the actions of other countries". German historians worked hard to "undermine the validity of this clause" and in doing so "found a ready acceptance among 'revisionist' writers in France, Britain, and the USA. " Sally Marks comments that "German politicians and propagandists fulminated endlessly about 'unilateral war guilt', convincing many who had not read the treaties of their injustice on this point".

Additional resentment came from the perceived unfair treatment received in regards to ethnic Germans outside of Germany’s borders. National self-determination was "at the heart of the peacemaking" and while there was polls showing "overwhelming majorities" within the Sudetenland and Austria wanting to merge with Germany, this was firmly forbidden. The view held was that "the self-determination granted to others was denied to fellow-Germans". "More traumatic" was the revival of Poland and the granting of "substantial portions" of Prussian land to the new Polish state.

With Germany having not been invaded and German soldiers still based in France at the end of the war, the German High Command and right wing politicians claimed that Germany had not been defeated on the field of battle but rather by left wing politicians and the collapse of the home front. This position gave rise to the Stab-in-the-back myth. With time, the list of those who had betrayed Germany increased to include communists, "milksops", and German Jews.

Aftermath

Further information: Aftermath of World War I

Territorial changes

Robert Peckham notes that the issue of Schleswig-Holstein "was premised on a gross simplification of the region’s history". The plebiscite presented two options: choose between Denmark or Germany. Peckham asserts that "Versailles ignored any possibility of there being a third way: the kind of compact represented by the Swiss Federation; a bilingual or even trilingual Schleswig-Holsteinian state" or other options such as "a Schleswigian state in a loose confederation with Denmark or Germany, or an autonomous region under the protection of the League of Nations." In early 1920, a referendum was held in Schleswig. The "northern, Danish-speaking part, voted for Denmark, while the southern, German speaking part voted for Germany" resulting in the territory being split between both countries. "Holstein remained German without a referendum".

On 11 July 1920, the East Prussia plebiscite was held. There was a 90 per cent turn out with 99.3 per cent of the population wishing to remain with Germany. Historian Richard Blanke comments that "no other contested ethnic group has ever, under un-coerced conditions, issued so one-sided a statement of its national preference". However, Richard Debo disagrees. He notes that "both Berlin and Warsaw believed the Soviet invasion of Poland had influenced the East Prussian plebiscites. Poland appeared so close to collapse that even Polish voters had cast their ballots for Germany".

Following plebiscites in Eupen, Malmedy, and Prussian Moresnet, the League of Nations allotted these territories to Belgium on 20 September 1920. Over the next two years a Boundary Commission conducted work, completing its assignment on 6 November 1922. On 15 December 1923, the German Government recognized the new border between the two countries.

A crowd awaits the plebiscite results in Oppeln

The transfer of the Hultschin area, of Silesia, to Czechoslovakia was completed on 3 February 1921.

Between 1919 and 1921 violence broke out between Poles and Germans within the province of Upper Silesia. Three uprisings took place as Germany and Poland fought for control of the region. While German and Polish Silesians fought one another, German and Polish troops – who had little or no connection to the region – intervened "in the name of the 'national interest'". Philipp Ther comments that "the major cause of the violence, then, was the choice not to demobilize troops who had fought in World War I, not a nationalist mobilization of the population in Upper Silesia". In March 1921, the plebiscite in Upper Silesia was conducted by an Inter-allied Commission of Britain, France, and Italy, who were also governing the area following the implantation of the Treaty of Versailles. While there had been violence in the region, "the election itself took place without incident" and close to 60 per cent of the population voted to remain with Germany. Following the vote, the League of Nations debated how the resulted "should be applied", if the entire area should be transferred to Germany or the area split in regards to how individual sections of the area had voted. While the debate was underway, "the Poles invaded the territory" effecting the final outcome. In 1922, Upper Silesia was partitioned by the League of Nations. The northwestern section (Oppeln) of the district remained with Germany while the southeastern part (Silesia Province) was transferred to Poland. Blanke observes "given that the electorate was at least 60% Polish-speaking, this means that about one 'Pole' in three voted for Germany". He further notes that "most Polish observers and historians" have concluded that the outcome of plebiscite was due to "unfair German advantages of incumbency and socio-economic position" and have also alleged "coercion of various kinds even in the face of an allied occupation regime" occurred, and that Germany granted votes to those "who had been born in Upper Silesia but no longer resided there". Blanke concludes that despite these protests "there is plenty of other evidence, including Reichstag election results both before and after 1921 and the large-scale emigration of Polish-speaking Upper Silesians to Germany after 1945, that their identification with Germany in 1921 was neither exceptional nor temporary". He further notes "here was a large population of Germans and Poles – not coincidentally, of the same Catholic religion – that not only shared the same living space but also came in many cases to see themselves as members of the same national community". Prince Eustachy Sapieha, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, alleged that Soviet Russia "appeared to be intentionally delaying negotiations" to end the Polish-Soviet War "with the object of influencing the Upper Silesian plebiscite". Once the region was partitioned, both "Germany and Poland attempted to 'cleanse' their shares of Upper Silesia" via oppression resulting in Germans migrating to Germany and Poles migrating to Poland. Despite the oppression and migration, Opole Silesia "remained ethnically mixed."

Memel remained under the authority of the League of Nations, with a French military garrison, until January 1923. On 9 January 1923, Lithuanian forces invaded the territory. The French garrison withdrew, and in February 1923, the Allies agreed to attach "Memel as an autonomous territory to Lithuania". On 8 May 1924, after negotiations between the Lithuanian Government and the Conference of Ambassadors, and action taken by the League of Nations, the annexation of the territory was ratified. In exchange, "Lithuania accepted the Memel Statute, a power-sharing arrangement to protect non-Lithuanians in the territory and its autonomous status. ... Overall responsibility for the territory remained with the great powers", however, the League of Nations "preferred to have Memel disputes between Germans and Lithuanians settled locally, and until 1929 they most were, due to the determination of the German prime minister, Gustav Stresemann, to make the Memel Statute and its power-sharing arrangement succeed." Until 1929, this arrangement worked and both countries "agreed to enhance their economic linkages while working around their differences" and the League of Nations "served during this period largely as a check against German-Lithuanian failure to reach solutions".

On 13 January 1935, a plebiscite was held within the Saar region. 528,105 votes were cast, with 477,119 votes being in favor of union with Germany – 90 per cent of the valid ballot. 46,613 votes were cast for the status quo, and only 2,124 for union with France. The region was returned to Germany on 1 March 1935. Frank Russell notes that the Saar inhabitants "were not terrorized at the polls" and concludes that the "totalitarian German regime was not distasteful to most of the Saar inhabitants and that they preferred it even to an efficient, economical, and benevolent international rule." When the outcome of the vote became known, 4,100 (including 800 refugees who had previously fled Germany) residents fled over the border into France.

Reparations

Trains, loaded with machinery, deliver their cargo as reparation payment in kind.

In January 1921, the Inter-Allied Reparations Commission established the reparation figure Germany had to pay. The figure was set at 132 billion marks, divided into three categories. The first category, 'A Bonds', amounted to 12 billion gold marks. The second category, 'B Bonds', amounted to a further 38 billion marks. The final category, 'C Bond's, contained the remaining two thirds of the total sum. However, as historian and reparation expert Sally Marks notes, "Allied experts knew that Germany could not pay" the entire sum thus the third category was "deliberately designed to be chimerical" and its "primary function was to mislead public opinion ... into believing the" total sum "was being maintained." Bell notes that the 'C Bonds' essentially "amounted to [the] indefinite postponement" of that figure. The combined total of the 'A' and 'B' Bonds, which were genuine, "represented the actual Allied assessment of German capacity to pay" and "therefore ... represented the total German reparations" figure. Therefore, Germany was only required to pay 50 billion marks (12.5 billion dollars), "an amount smaller than what Germany had ... offered to pay". Furthermore, Germany did not have to pay this entire figure in cash. While there was to be periodic cash payments, the gold value of material shipments were to be credited against the total sum. These material shipments included coal, timber, chemical dyes, pharmaceutical drugs, livestock, agricultural machines, construction material, and factory machinery. Helping to restore the Library of Louvain was credited towards the overall reparation sum, as did some of the territorial changes imposed upon Germany by the treaty. The highly publicized rhetoric of 1919 about paying for all the damages and all the veterans' benefits was irrelevant to the total, but it did affect how the recipients spent their share. Austria, Hungary, and Turkey were also supposed to pay reparations. However, they were so impoverished following the war that they in fact paid very little before their debts were written off. Germany was the only defeated country rich enough to pay anything.

In January 1923, following Germany failing to make reparation payments in kind, French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr with the goal of forcing Germany to resume payments. The French saw this as an opportunity to either make Germany continue paying or inflict serious damage upon the German economy. Later in the year, on the initiative of the British, a committee (containing American, Belgian, British, French, Germany, and Italian experts) was formed to consider "from a purely technical standpoint" how to balance the German budget, stabilize the German economy, and set an achievable level of reparations. The committee was chaired by, the American banker and Director of the US Bureau of the Budget, Charles G. Dawes. The recommendations of the committee became known as the Dawes Plan and were accepted during 1924. The plan called for the withdrawal of French troops from the Ruhr (which the French agreed to), a German bank independent of the German government with a ruling body that was at least 50 per cent non-German, and plans to stabilize the German currency. The Dawes Plan "left the total [reparations] unchanged", but organized a new scheme of payments. Within the first year of the plan taking effect, Germany would have to pay 1,000 million marks rising to 2,500 million marks per year by the fifth year following the acceptance of the plan. To help make payments, a Reparation Agency was established. It contained Allied representatives to organize the payment of reparations. To facilitate the Dawes Plan, a loan of 800 million marks was to be raised (over 50 per cent coming from the United States, 25 per cent from Britain, and the rest from other European countries) to back the German currency and to aid in reparation payments. For the establishment of the plan and for contributing to "reducing the tension between Germany and France" Charles Dawes received the Nobel Peace Prize for 1925.

In February 1929, a new committee was formed to reexamine the reparation situation. Chaired by Owen D. Young, the committee presented its findings in June, and in May 1930 the Young Plan was accepted and put into effect. It called for the end of "foreign surveillance of German finances", the withdrawal of the Reparations Agency, a 25 per cent reduction in the level of reparations to a total sum of 26,350 million dollars and a new scheme of payments that were to be completed by 1988: "the first mention of a final date." In 1932, the Lausanne Conference "cancelled reparations altogether". By this point Germany had paid 20.598 billon gold marks in reparations. With the rise of Adolf Hitler, all bonds and loans that had been issued and taken out during the 1920s and early 1930s were cancelled. David Andelman notes "refusing to pay doesn’t make an agreement null and void. The bonds, the agreement, still exist." Thus, following the Second World War, at the London Conference in 1953, Germany agreed to resume payment on the money borrowed. On 3 October 2010, Germany made the final payment on these bonds.

The Rhineland

French soldiers in the Ruhr, the spark that resulted in the American withdrawal from the Rhineland

Following the end of the war, the United States Third Army entered the Rhineland with 200,000 men to enforce the terms of the armistice. In June 1919, following the signing of the treaty, the Third Army was deactivated. The American occupation force was steadily scaled down. By 1920, 15,000 men remained. In the final months of Woodrow Wilson’s presidency, he successfully reduced the American garrison to 6,500 men before President Warren G. Harding was inaugurated. On 7 January 1923, in response to the Franco-Belgian occupation of the Ruhr, the US senate passed legislation to withdraw to the remaining force. On 24 January, the American garrison started their withdrawal from the Rhineland, with the final troops leaving in early February. The British, likewise, disapproved of the Franco-Belgian occupation of the Ruhr. Withdrawing the British garrison was considered, but was found to be unwise. It was deemed that as long as the British army "remained on the Rhine it could act as a check on the French" and stop the French from carrying out their policy "of establishing an autonomous Rhineland Republic."

At a conference held in The Hague in August 1929 to further discuss the Young Plan, the German Prime Minister Gustav Stresemann and his French counterpart Aristide Briand negotiated the early withdrawal of Allied forces from the Rhineland. Briand, who became known as the 'apostle of peace' agreed on an early withdrawal and gave Stresemann his assurance that the French army would vacate the Rhineland no later than 30 June 1930. On 30 June 1930, after speeches and the lowering of flags, the final remnants of the Anglo-French-Belgian occupation force withdrew from Germany.

The Locarno Treaties

From left to right, Nobel Peace Prize winners, Gustav Stresemann, Austen Chamberlain, and Aristide Briand during the Locarno negotiations.

On 16 October 1925, on the initiative of the British foreign minister Austen Chamberlain, a meeting was held at the Swiss town of Locarno between Belgian, British, French, German, and Italian representatives. The outcome of this meeting, the Locarno Treaties, were signed on 1 December in London, United Kingdom. The German government accepted her current western borders, as set out by the Treaty of Versailles, and also accepted the Rhineland as a demilitarized zone. What had "previously [been] regarded as only part of the diktat of Versailles" was now "freely accepted" by the German government during the Locarno conference. Italy and the United Kingdom were the guarantees of this agreement and the border, "in effect protecting France and Germany from attack by each other". Chamberlain called the Locarno Treaty as "the real dividing-line between the years of war and the years of peace". Stresemann observed that "Locarno may be interpreted as signifying that the States of Europe at last realize that they cannot go on making war upon each other without being involved in common ruin". As well as the treaty, the German and French foreign ministers – Stresemann and Briand – had started to develop a strong relationship "perhaps amounting to friendship". For their efforts in attempting to foster reconciliation between Germany and France, Chamberlain, Briand, and Stresemann were all awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.

The Locarno Treaties "marked the rehabilitation of Germany as a full member of the international community" and German joined the League of Nations in 1926. The treaty was accompanied by additional agreements. A Franco-German committee aimed to mend relations between French and German Catholics. Industrialists from Belgian, France, Germany, and Luxembourg signed an agreement in September 1926 to create an iron and steel cartel regulating annual production and its division among the four countries. German signed a series of treaties with Czechoslovakia, France, and Poland "laying down that certain types of disputes between the signatories should be submitted to outside arbitration." France signed "treaties of mutual guarantee[s]" with Czechoslovakia and Poland intended to counter the "obvious gap left by Locarno, which was that it concerned only Western Europe."

Violations of the treaty

Further information: Munich Crisis, Invasion of Poland, Operation Weserübung, Battle of Belgium, and Second Armistice at Compiègne

During 1920, Hans von Seeckt "re-established a clandestine general staff system." In March of the same year, 18,000 German troops entered the Rhineland to "quell possible communist unrest" and in doing so violated the demilitarized zone. French troops therefore extended their occupation zone further into Germany until the German troops withdrew. In violation of the disarmament clauses of the treaty, German military and government officials "deliberately planned systematic violations of the effectives clauses of the treaty" such as actively avoiding to meet disarmament deadlines, refusing Allied officials access to military facilities (who had the right to view such facilities to ensure the Germans were compiling with the disarmament protocols), continuing "illegal Krupp production" and keeping "hidden weapon caches". As nothing within the treaty forbade German companies from producing war material outside of Germany, German companies moved abroad to continue weapons manufacturing for Germany. Plants were established in the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Sweden. The Swedish arms company Bofors, was bought out by Krupp and in 1921 German troops were sent to Sweden to test weapons.

Chancellor of Germany Joseph Wirth (second from left) with Leonid Krasin, Georgi Chicherin and Adolph Joffe of the Russian delegation at Rapallo.

During the Genoa Conference, an economic conference held in Italy in 1922, representatives from the Weimar Republic and the Soviet Union signed the Treaty of Rapallo on 16 April. The treaty re-established full diplomatic relations between Germany and the Soviet Union, renounced compensation for war damages, renounced all claims – national or private – against one another, set favorable terms for trade, and stated both countries would supply each other’s economic requirements. While the Soviet government denied that there was any secret military clauses to the treaty, the signing of the treaty resulted in "increasing contact, secret in nature, between Soviet and German military and industrial interests." Historian P.M.H Bell comments this allowed "Germany to develop weapons in the USSR". In breach of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany established three secret training areas inside the Soviet Union: one for aviation, chemical, and tank warfare. The German military were able to experiment "with advanced war techniques" and train their military personnel.

In 1923, the British newspaper The Times published two articles claiming Germany had "personnel, clothing, and armaments for 800,000 men and was transferring army staff to civilian positions." It also warned of the "danger of the military nature" of the German police force, and claimed Germany was "attempting to establish an army based on the historic Krümper system".

In 1925, with "the end of the Allied disarmament operations" in sight, German companies "drafted plans for tanks and artillery". In January 1927, following the withdrawal of the disarmament committee, "Krupp increased [the] illegal production of artillery and armor plate". Gustav Krupp later claimed he had duped the Allies throughout the 1920s and prepared the German military for the future. Throughout the 1920s, Germany sold weapons to China. In 1925, over half of the weapons China imported were from Germany worth a total of 13 million Reichsmarks. By 1936, arms deliveries to China had increased to 23,748,000 Reichmarks and the following year 82,788,604.

During December 1931, the German military finalized a second rearmament plan, calling for the spending of 480 million Reichsmarks over the course of five years. A 'billion Reichsmark programme' "set out the extra spending on industrial inferstructure required to keep" an enlarged military "permanently in the field." However, since the plan "required no expansion of the peacetime strength of the Reichswehr" these spending plans "remained at least formally within the terms of Versailles." On 7 November 1932, Kurt von Schleicher authorized the Umbau Plan. This plan, an outright breech of the treaty, "called for the creation of a standing army of 21 divisions based around a cadre of 147,000 professional soldiers and a substantial militia". Towards the end of the year at the World Disarmament Conference, Germany withdrew from the talks in a bid to force France and the United Kingdom to accept German equality of status. In response, the United Kingdom attempted to get Germany to return with the promise of "equality of rights in armaments in a system which would provide security of all nations" and later proposed "an increase in the German Army from 100,000 to 200,000, while the French Army would be reduced." Further negotiations resulted in the agreement "that Germany should have an air force half the size of the French." Bell comments that while the British government already knew Germany was rearming, "public respectability was thus conferred on the idea of German rearmament". By 1933, Franco-German relations were deteriorating, the World Economic Conference broke up in disorder and the "spirit of Locarno fizzled out."

Crowds in Vienna, cheering the arriving Germans.

After electoral success in 1932, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor on 30 January 1933 and spent the next two years overthrowing the Weimar Republic and establishing a dictatorship. In October 1933, Nazi Germany withdrew from the League of Nations and the World Disarmament Conference. In July 1934, an Austrian Nazi coup failed "largely through the Italian dictator Mussolini making it clear by sending troops to the Brenner Pass that he was not ready to see a Greater Germany on his borders." On 2 August 1934, the officers and men of the German military made unconditional oaths of allegiance to Hitler. In June 1935, Germany reintroduced conscription, officially re-formed the air force (now known as the Luftwaffe), and signed the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, which allowed "Germany to expand her surface fleet to 35 per cent of the size of the Royal Navy. All "clear violations of the Versailles Treaty." On 7 March 1936, German troops entered the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland. While most troops were deployed along the east bank of the Rhine, several battalions moved towards Germany's western borders. In further violation of the Treaty of Versailles, on 11 March 1938, the government of the Republic of Austria was taken over by German nominees "as a result of pressure from Berlin". The following day, German troops crossed the border. On 13 March, Hitler "announced the annexation of Austria to Germany." On 23 March 1939, Germany annexed Memel from Lithuania.

Historical assessment

Popular perception

Writing in 1940, Rene Albrecht-Carrie comments that the "assumption ... is often made that the Versailles settlement is the source and fount of the world’s subsequent troubles". He continues "This conclusion would seem to be the result of a simple syllogism running somewhat like this: the World War was fought essentially for the purpose of establishing an orderly community of nations ... and the primary purpose of the peace was to bring about such a result; now it is clear that such a happy state of affairs has not come into existence; ergo, the war itself was a futile waste and the peace settlements were bad."

Sally Marks, writing in 1978, remarks that German reparations are "an excruciatingly tangled thicket into which only a few intrepid explorers have ventured." Thus, "understandably, most students of twentieth century history have preferred to sidestep the perils of travel on territory of extreme financial complexity and, as a consequence, a number of misconcetions about the history of German reparations remain in circulation". She concludes that the "myths about reparations ... still adorn studies of the Weimar Republic and interwar history". This view is furthered by Diane B. Kunz, writing in 1998, who notes that "even though historians have successfully refuted the myth of war guilt and the view that reparations were an intolerable burden these ideas rapidly became accepted wisdom and remain so now" and as a result "most people "know" that the Versailles treaty helped precipitate World War II and they "know" that reparations were wrong."

Historian Gerhard Weinberg comments that "there was a popular delusion, widespread at the time, sedulously fostered in the 1920s and 1930s by German propaganda, generally believed then and remaining the staple pabulum of history textbooks today, that Germany had been most terrible crushed by the peace settlement, that all manner of horrendous things had been done to her, and that wide variety of onerous burdens and restrictions imposed upon her by the peace had weakened her into the indefinite future". A position supported by Mark Mazower, who comments "one is hard put to find a school textbook with anything good to say about the achievements of the Paris peacemakers." Weinberg continues "Germany – a bare quarter of a century after the armistice of 1918 – controlled most of Europe and had come within a hair’s breadth of conquering the globe, there was obviously something wrong about the picture generally accepted then and later."

War guilt

Count Ulrich Graf von Brockdorff-Rantzau

In May 1919, Count Brockdorff-Rantzau complained – prior to having seen the treaty – that it forced Germany to accept full responsibility for the war. On 18 June 1919, Brockdorff-Rantzau, "on behalf of the German delegation", politically charged the article by further claiming it blamed Germany for starting the war. His position was rebuffed by Clemenceau who "showed that the legal interpretation was the correct one" rather than a political one. Instead "Brockdorff-Rantzau continued to hang the discussion of the political origin of the war on the text of Article 231" and it later appeared "that Article 231 was not correctly translated into German. Rather than stating " ... Germany accepts responsibility of Germany and her allies causing all the loss and damage ..." the German government's edition reads "Germany admits it, that Germany and her allies, as authors of the war, are responsible for all losses and damages ..." Brockdorff-Rantzau's position was further propagated by politicians. The "prevailing German belief" was that Germany "signed away her honor in Article 231". German historians worked hard to "undermine the validity of this clause" and in doing so "found a ready acceptance among 'revisionist' writers in France, Britain, and the USA." The "most outspoken and influential critic" was the American historian Sidney Fay. In 1928, he concluded that all of Europe shared the blame for the war and that Germany had no intention of launching a general European war in 1914.

Writing in 1926, Robert Binkley and Dr. Mahr, both of Stanford University and the latter the assistant Professor of German, comment that the German accusations were "ill-founded" and "mistaken". In 1940, Albrecht-Carrie stated "article 231 gave rise to an unfortunate controversy, unfortunate because it served to raise a false issue." Binkley and Mahr note that the war guilt article was "an assumption of liability to pay damages than an admission of war guilt" and compare it with "a man who undertakes to pay all the cost of a motor accident than to the plea of guilty entered by an accused criminal". Albrecht-Carrie supports this point noting that the German inter-war argument "rested on her responsibility for the out-break of the war" and if that guilt could be disproven then the legal requirement to pay reparations would disappear. Binkley and Mahr comment that "it is absurd" to charge the reparation articles of the treaty with "political meaning" and the legal interpretation "is the only one that can stand". They conclude the German mistranslation and position "is based upon a text which has no legal validity whatsoever, and which Germany never signed at all."

Between 1959 and 1969, the German historian Fritz Fischer reignited the war guilt issue. In his "well-researched", but highly controversial, works Germany's Aims in the First World War and War of Illusions Fischer "destroyed the consensus about shared responsibility for the First World War" and "placed the blame for the First World War firmly on the shoulders of the Wilhelmine elite." By the 1970s, his work "had emerged as the new orthodoxy on the origins of the First World War". During the 1980s, historian James Joll led a new wave of First World War research concluding "that the origins of the First World War were "complex and varied" although "by December 1912" Germany had decided to go to war.

In 1978, historian Sally Marks reexamined the reparation clauses of the Treaty of Versailles in a work entitled The Myths of Reparations. Marks comments that "the much-criticized 'war guilt clause', Article 231, which was designed to lay a legal basis for reparations, in fact makes no mention of war guilt". She notes it only specifies Germany was to pay for the damages caused by the war they imposed upon the allies and "that Germany committed an act of aggression against Belgium is beyond dispute" and highlights that "technically, Britain entered" the war and French troops entered Belgium "to honor" the "legal obligation" to defend Belgium "under the treaties of Apr. 19 1839" and that "Germany openly acknowledged her responsibility in regard to Belgium on August 4, 1914 and May 7, 1919." She further notes that "the same clause, mutatis mutandis" was incorporated "in the treaties with Austria and Hungary, neither of whom interpreted it as declaration of war guilt." Wolfgang Mommsen supports this position, noting that "Austria and Hungary, understandably paid no attention to this aspect of the draft treaty". Writing in 1986, Marks echoed Albrecht-Carrie. She commented that the German foreign office, supported by military and civilian notables, "focused on Article 231 ... hoping that, if one could refute German responsibility for the war, not only reparations but the entire treaty would collapse". Mommsen highlights that "before the Versailles negotiations began, the German government took the position that it would be inadvisable ... to elevate the question of war guilt" and it was only "at the last minute that Brockdorff-Rantzau decided to disregard the repeated explicit decisions of the Reich cabinet and launch a frontal attack on the Allies' position regarding war guilt". Mommsen further comments that top-level German "government officials were apparently aware that Germany's position on this matter was not nearly so favorable as the imperial government had led the German public to believe during the war."

In his 2005 work, Stephen Neff details the history of clause. He notes that the "Commission on the Responsibility of the Authors of the War and on Enforcement of Penalties" examined the background of the war and concluded the "war was premeditated by the Central Powers ... and was the result of acts deliberately committed [by them] to make it unavoidable." Germany and Austria-Hungary had "deliberately worked to defeat all the many conciliatory proposals made by the Entente Powers and their repeated efforts to avoid war." This conclusion, Neff asserts, "was duly incorporated ... as the famous 'war guilt clause'". However, he concedes that, "the term 'war guilt' is a slight unfortunate one, since to lawyers, the term 'guilt' primarily connotes criminal liability" while "the responsibility of Germany envisaged in the Versailles Treaty ... was civil in nature, comparable to the indemnity obligation of classical just-war theory." Slavicek comments that while "the article was an honest reflection of the treaty-writers' beliefs, including such a clause in the peace settlement was undiplomatic, to say the least." Norman Davies takes a more partisan view claiming that the Treaty of Versailles invited Germany "to accept sole guilt for the preceding war" while Diane B. Kunz comments that "rather than being seen as an American lawyer's clever attempt to limit actual German financial responsibility by buying off French politicians and their public with the sop of a piece of paper" article 231 "became an easily exploitable open sore".

Manfred Boemeke, Gerald Feldman, and Elisabeth Glaser perhaps provide the most balanced view. They note "pragmatic requirements characteristically influenced the shaping of the much misunderstood Article 231. That paragraph reflected the presumed legal necessity to define German responsibility for the war in order to specify and limit the Reich's obligations". Finally, Klaus Schwabe highlights that the article’s influence went far beyond the discussion of war guilt. By "refusing to acknowledge Germany's 'war guilt' the new German government implicitly exonerated the old monarchial order" and more importantly failed "to dissociate itself from the old regime." In doing so "it undermined its claim that post-revolutionary Germany was a historic new democratic beginning deserving credit at the peace conference."

Reparations, and the impact on the German economy

Contemporary

John Maynard Keynes in 1946

The economist John Maynard Keynes "set the fashion for critics of the economic aspects of the treaty" and "made probably the severest and most sweeping indictment of its economic provisions". Keynes was temporarily attached to the British Treasury during the war and was their official representative at the Paris Peace Conference. He resigned from the latter position "when it became evident that hope could no longer be entertained of substantial modifications in the draft Terms of Peace" due to the "policy of the Conference towards the economic problems of Europe". He 1919, he wrote The Economic Consequences of the Peace based on his objections. He commented that he believed "that the campaign for securing out of Germany the general costs of the war was one of the most serious acts of political unwisdom for which our statesmen have ever been responsible" and called the treaty a "Carthaginian peace" that would economically effect all of Europe. Keynes claims that the treaty's reparation figures "generally exceed Germany’s capacity" to pay and asserts 10 billion dollars was the "safe maximum figure", but even then he did "not believe that [Germany could] pay as much". The Reparation Commission, he believed, was a tool that could "be employed to destroy Germany’s commercial and economic organization as well as to exact payment". Keynes identified reparations as the Allies "main excursion into the economic field" but notes that the treaty included "no provisions for the economic rehabilitation of Europe, – nothing to make the defeated Central Empires into good neighbors, nothing to stabilize the new States of Europe, nothing to reclaim Russia; nor does it promote in any way a compact of economic solidarity amongst the Allies themselves." Coal provides an example of these destabilizing effects within Germany and beyond. Keynes claimed that the "surrender of the coal will destroy German industry" although he concedes that without it the French and Italian industry – damaged directly via the war or indirectly due to damage to coal mines – would be effected. He notes that this is "not yet the whole problem". The treaty would have a knock on effect on central and northern Europe as neutral states such as Switzerland and Sweden made up for their own coal deficiencies by trading with Germany, as did Austria who would now be consigned to "industrial ruin" as "nearly all the coalfields of the former Empire lie outside of what is now German-Austria". Rather, in Keynes opinion, the reparation figure should have been fixed "well within Germany’s capacity to pay" so to "make possible the renewal of hope and enterprise within her territory" and to "avoid the perpetual friction and opportunity of improper pressure arising out of the Treaty clauses".

Historian Claude Campbell, writing in 1942, notes that the "apparent majority did not regard the treaty as perfect by any means, but, as Bernard M. Baruch ably maintained in his book, The Making of the Reparation and Economic Sections of the Treaty, published in 1920, they did believe it to be the best agreement obtainable under the circumstances." Campbell notes that it was a minority who attacked the treaty, but these attacks "centered upon its economic provisions". James T. Shotwell, writing in his 1939 book What Germany Forgot, claimed "the only 'unendurable servitudes' in the treaty were in the sections on Reparation and the Polish settlement and raised the question as to what part of Germany’s grievance against the peace lay in the substance of its exactions and what part in the manner of their imposition." Sir Andrew McFayden, who likewise represented the British Treasury at the peace conference and worked on the Reparation Commission, published his work Don’t Do it Again in 1941. Campbell comments that McFayden's position "falls somewhere between the views of Keynes and Shotwell". MacFayden's attack on reparations "was as harsh as Keynes" but conceded the "fault did not lie primarily in the provisions of the treaty but in their execution" and also believed :that he Polish settlement was the only readjustment ... which was decidedly unwise." Albrecht-Carrie highlights that prior to the German surrender Woodrow Wilson dispatched a note to the German government on 5 November 1918, the terms of which were accepted by the German government. The note stated that he allies "under-stand that compensation will be made by Germany for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allies and their property by the aggression of Germany by land, by sea, and from the air." Regardless of which, Albrecht-Carrie concedes that "the reparation section of the Treaty of Versailles proved indeed to be a dismal failure." Campbell, herself, comments "although there was much in the peace that was 'petty, unjust, and humiliating', there was little aside from reparation clauses and certain territorial concessions, which had much real bearing upon Germany's economic future." Summarizing the view of economists throughout the 1920s, she notes that the territorial changes to Germany were "not necessarily ... economically unsound", but the removal of the Saar and territory to Poland thus "depriving Germany of her resources in excess of the amount necessary to fulfill the legitimate economic demands of the victors ... was indefensible". Furthermore, the treaty failed to "include ... provisions looking to the restoration of Germany to her former position as the chief economic and financial stabilizing influence in central Europe" and that this was an economic shortsighted and failing of the treaty from an "economic standpoint".

The "fullest and ablest attack" on Keynes work came from the "convincing broadside" launched by the French economist Étienne Mantoux. In his a posthumously published book The Carthaginian Peace, or the Economic Consequences of Mr. Keynes, Mantoux asserted that Keynes "had been wrong on various counts, especially with respect to his predictions about Germany’s coal, iron and steel production ... and its level of national saving." Citing the rearmament under Hitler as an example, Mantoux suggested Germany "had been in a stronger position to pay reparations than Keynes had made out".

Modern

P.M.H Bell comments that "it was not unusual for cash payments, or indemnities, to be imposed upon the losing side in war" and highlights the example of France, which had "a substantial indemnity ... imposed ... as the defeated power at the end of the Franco-Prussian War of 1871." However, the financial terms of Treaty of Versailles were labeled reparations as they were designed to pay for reconstruction and compensate families who had lost someone during the war, thus "to distinguish them from the punitive payments, usually called indemnities". Of the reparation figure imposed on Germany, less than the equivalent of 21 billion gold marks were paid out of a total of 50 billion gold marks. Sally Marks states that "figures based upon publications of the Reparation Commission and the Bank for International Settlements" place the total German payment at 20.598 billon gold marks whereas Niall Ferguson estimates that 19 billion gold marks "would seem to be a reasonable figure for the total value of unrequited transfer from Germany to the Allies". Ferguson notes that this was "a relatively small proportion (2.4 percent) of total national income over the period" of 1919-32. Stephen Schuker provides slightly different figures. He comments that "for the whole period 1919-31, Germany transferred to the Allies, in cash and kind together, an average of only 2.0 percent of national income" which in total made an "unilateral transfer equal to a startling 5.3 percent of German national income for 1919-31."

Louise Slavicek notes that the "traditional interpretation of the treaty's impact on Germany" was that it "plunged the nation into an economic free fall" Niall Ferguson comments that the initial German reaction that the treaty was robbing Germany of its wealth is incorrect. He notes "not many historians would today agree with [Max] Warburg's characterization of the Versailles treaty as 'pillage on a global scale'" He goes on to note that the annual payment of reparations "was less of a burden than Keynes and others claimed" and that the "potential burden on national income of the annuity vary from 5 percent to 10 percent." However, he states that the initial German effort "should not be underestimated" and that between eight and 13 billion gold marks were transferred to the Allies prior to the implementation of the Dawes Plan, which was "between 4 and 7 percent of total national income". Further, he calculates that "the annuity demanded in 1921 put an intolerable strain on the state's finances" and total expenditure - between 1920 and 1920 - "under the terms of the Versailles treaty" amounted to "at least 50 percent of Reich revenue, 20 percent of total Reich spending and 10 percent of total public spending." Thus, Ferguson claims, reparations "undermined confidence in the Reich's creditworthiness" and "were therefore excessive - as the German government claimed." Writing in 2006, Norman Davies briefly furthers this position, claiming the treaty forced Germany to "pay astronomic reparations". Max Hantke and Mark Spoerer, in a paper highlighting how Versailles benefited Germany, comment that "reparation payments were indeed a severe economic burden for Germany". They note that "the German economy was deprived of between one and 2.2 billion Reichsmark (RM) annually, which amounted in the late 1920s to nearly 2.5 per cent of Germany's GDP."

Taking the middle ground is Robert D. Boyce. He called the reparations "a heavy burden on Germany, both as a financial charge ... and as a charge on Germany's balance of payments". However, he notes while "Germany claimed it could not afford to pay reparations" this was far from the truth. He states "in fact Germany had made little effort to pay reparations. It refused to levy the necessary taxes, and far from accumulating the foreign exchange required for their payment by collecting some of the overseas earnings of German exporters, it allowed them to leave their earnings abroad." Bell comments that reparations were "unwelcome to Germany", did provide a "strain on the German balance of payments", but "could be paid, and indeed that they were compatible with a general recovery in European commerce and industry.

Avocourt, 1918, one of the many destroyed French villages that needed to be rebuilt following the war and reparations intended to pay for.

Sally Marks notes that "while Article 231 ... established an unlimited theoretical liability" it "in fact narrowed German responsibility to civilian damages". She further comments that "much ink has been wasted on the fact that civilian damages were stretched to cover war widows' pensions and allowances for military dependents." However, "since the German reparations bill was established ... on the basis of an Allied assessment of German capacity to pay, not on the basis of Allied claims, these items did not affect German liability but merely altered distribution of the receipts." As an example, she states "inclusion of pensions and allowances increased the British share of the pie but did not enlarge the pie." Marks states that the delay until 1921 to assign a final reparation total "was actually in Germany's interest" as the figures discussed at the Peace Conference were "astronomic, ranging to sixteen times the amount finally set" and she highlights the British contingent for particular comment. "The British experts, Lords Sumner and Cunliffe, were so unrealistic that they were nicknamed 'the heavenly twins'." The final total imposed on Germany "was a Belgian compromise between higher French and Italian totals and a lower British figure." The final total "represented an assessment of the lowest amount that public opinion in continental receiver states would tolerate" and the British pushed for a smaller figure since they were working towards "an immediate German economic revival." Marks comments that "historians have focused upon the figure of 132 billion without examining the nature of its implementation. The London Schedule of Payments of May 5, 1921, both enshrined this sum and demolished it. The full liability of all the Central Powers combined, not just Germany along, was set at 132 billion gold marks" and this figure "was to be organized in three series of bonds, labeled A, B, and C. ... C Bonds, which contained the bulk of the German obligation, were deliberately designed to be chimerical. They were entirely unreal, and their primary function was to mislead public opinion ... into believing that the 132-billion-mark figure was being maintained. ... Thus the A and B Bonds, which were genuine, represented the actual Allied assessment of Germany capacity to pay. ... Therefore the A and B Bonds represented the total German reparations liability to a face (or nominal) value of 50 billion gold marks or $12 1/2 billion, an amount smaller than what Germany had ... offered to pay." Marks highlights that in 1921 "Germany met her first cash payment of one billion gold marks in full" because "west German customs posts and an area around Düsseldorf were under Allied occupation." Afterwards, the Allies "relinquished the customs posts but remained at Düsseldorf" and thereafter Germany "made no further payments in cash until after the Dawes Plan went into effect late in 1924" although they did pay "a tiny portion of the variable annuity due in November 1921 and small amounts on annuities due in early 1922". Weinberg notes that the reparations were paid, the "devastated towns were rebuilt, the orchards replanted, the mines pumped out and all the pensions to survivors were paid". However, as he points out, the Germans were not the funders of this reconstruction. Rather, Germany shifted "the burden of repair costs from the less damaged German economy to the more damaged economies of others thus served to redouble rather than off-set the impact of the war itself." A. J. P. Taylor, in his highly controversial work The Origins of the Second World War, comments that "no doubt the impoverishment of Germany was caused by war, not by reparations. Not doubt the Germans could have paid reparations, if they had regarded them as an obligation of honour, honestly incurred." However, he concedes that "reparations ... kept the passions of war alive."

Bernadotte Schmitt comments had "pensions and separation allowances ... not been included, reparations would probably never have become bogey that poisoned the post-war world for so many years." Diane Kunz comments that historians have refuted the myth that reparations caused an "intolerable burden" on Germany.

A logarithmic scale depicting the hyperinflation, up until 1923, that occured in the Weimar Republic. One paper Mark per Gold Mark increased to one trillion paper Marks per Gold Marks.

The issue of reparations and Versailles is closely followed and somewhat linked to the inflation that struck the German economy during the 1920s. Erik Goldstein states that attempting to implement the payment scheme envisioned by the Reparations Commission, in 1921, "almost immediately caused a crisis". He goes on to state that the occupation of the Ruhr had a disastrous effect on the German economy, resulting in the German government printing more money as the currency collapsed in value. He notes that "more than 30 paper mills worked at top speed and capacity to deliver notepaper to the Reichsbank, and 150 printing firms had 2,000 presses running day and night to print the Reichsbank notes" with the end result being that by November 1923, "1 US dollar equaled 4,200,000,000,000 marks". Niall Ferguson comments that due to the decisions made by Robert Schmidt - the German Economics Minister - at the urging of Warburg, Germany avoided an economic collapse in 1919 and 1920. However, Ferguson goes on to say - agreeing with an earlier work by Steven Webb on German hyperinflation - that "reparations accounted for the lion's share of the Reich deficit in 1921 and 1922 (68 percent of and 56 percent respective totals)" and reparations "were thus, in Barry Eichengreen's words, 'ultimately responsible for the inflation'".

However, Weinberg bluntly counters this position stating "the Germans shook off the reparation payments by simple refusal to pay, by destroying their own currency - in part to demonstrate inability to pay - and by more than off-setting what payments were made through borrowing abroad followed by repudiation of most of these loans in the 1930s." Anthony Lentin also supports this position. He comments that inflation was "a consequence of the war rather than of the peace" and the hyperinflation was a result of the "German government's reckless issue of paper money during the Ruhr crisis". Marks, comments that "Germans argued that reparations were destroying their currency while British and French experts agreed that Germany was deliberately ruining the mark, partly to avoid budgetary and currency reform, but primarily to escape reparations. She continues "Those historians who have accepted the German claim that reparations were the cause of the inflation have overlooked the fact that the inflation long predated reparations" and "they have similarly overlooked the fact that the inflation mushroomed in the period from the summer of 1921 to the end of 1922 when Germany was actually paying very little in reparations" and "have also failed to explain why the period of least inflation coincided with the period of largest reparation payments ... or why Germans claimed after 1930 that reparations were causing deflation" and concludes "there is no doubt that British and French suspicions late in 1922 were sound." Marks concludes that the "astronomic inflation which ensued was a result of German policy" and not only did Germany fund "passive resistance" of the Ruhr "from an empty exchequer" but the "German government" paid "off its domestic debts, including the war debt, and those of the state enterprises in worthless marks." Bell, also supports these attacks, commenting that the "inflation had little direct connection with reparation payments themselves, but a great deal to do with the way the German government chose to subsidize industry and to pay the costs of passive resistance to the occupation [of the Ruhr] by extravagant use of the printing press." Bell concludes that "the Ruhr occupation and the German hyperinflation were not inevitable consequences of the reparation clauses of Versailles; but they as events turned out, they were among the actual results."

Hantke and Spoerer provide a different perspective on the effect of reparations on the German economy. They note that focusing on the reparation and inflation issue ignores "the fact that the restriction of the German military to 115,000 men relieved the German central budget considerably." The duo comment that their findings show "that even under quite rigorous assumptions the net economic burden of the Treaty of Versailles was much less heavy than has been hitherto thought, in particular if we confine our perspective to the Reich’s budget. They note that "though politically a humiliation" the limitation on the military "was beneficial in fiscal terms" and that their economic models show that "the restriction of the size of the army was clearly beneficial for the Reich budget." Additionally, their economic scenarios highlight that while "the Treaty of Versailles" was "overall clearly a burden on the German economy" it "also offered a substantial peace dividend for Weimar’s non-revanchist budget politicians." They conclude that "The fact that [these politicians] did not make sufficient use of this imposed gift supports the hypothesis that the Weimar Republic suffered from home-made political failure."

The first shipment of American gold arrives in Germany, as per the Dawes Plan.

Historians have also noted how American and European powers took an active interest in the German economy during the inter-war years. Taylor comments that "Germany was a net gainer by the financial transactions of the nineteen-twenties: she borrowed far more from private American investors ... than she paid in reparations." From January 1925 to April 1930, Germany - from the Reich government down to the state and municipal level as well as private enterprises and church organizations - had borrowed 6.7 billion gold marks on top of the 800 million gold marks that was raised as part of the Dawes Plan. By spring 1931, German foreign debt stood at 21.514 billion Reichsmarks, with the main sources of aid being the United States, Britain, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. Taylor further highlighted that Britain wanted to reintegrate Germany into European trade as soon as possible. Outside of reparation payments, French imports of German goods "increased by 60 per cent between 1926 and 1930" highlighting how "closely linked" French industrial growth was to "Germany production" and the increase in "Franco-German co-operation." Bell also notes that the creation of a multi-national committee, which would eventually result in the Dawes Plan, was done to consider how the German budget could be balanced, the currency stabilized, and fixing the German economy to ease reparation payments.

In summary, Sally Marks comments that a "substantial degree of scholarly consensus now suggests that paying what was actually asked of her was within Germany's financial capacity". A partisan view of this opinion exists, as evident by the opposition to this statement by historians Peter Kruger, Gerald D. Feldman, and Niall Ferguson, who argue that "the initial German effort to pay reparations was very substantial (the August 1921 payment in particular), that it produced an immense strain." An opinion supported by economic historians such as Barry Eichengreen and Steven Webb. However, William Keylor notes that historians have "successfully refuted the myth ... that reparations were an intolerable burden" and Ruth Henig comments "most historians of the Paris peace conference now take the view that, in economic terms, the treaty was not unduly harsh on Germany and that, while obligations and damages were inevitably much stressed in the debates at Paris to satisfy electors reading the daily newspapers, the intention was quietly to give Germany substantial help towards paying her bills, and to meet many of the German objections by amendments to the way the reparations schedule was in practice carried out."

Impact on the rise of the Nazi Party and influence on the origins of the Second World War

Adolf Hitler, in 1933, following his ascent to the office of Chancellor of Germany.

Some commentators have believed that a direct connection between the Treaty of Versailles and the rise of Adolf Hitler exists. John Maynard Keynes biographer claimed "Had Keynes 1919 programme been carried out, it is unlikely that Hitler would have become German chancellor." Ruth Henig highlights that "many politicians and commentators in Britain after 1933 saw Hitler's rise in power in Germany as an inevitable consequence of the wrongs of Versailles" and Lousie Slavicek notes that "traditionally, the burdensome financial, military, and territorial terms of the Treaty of Versailles have been blamed for the rise of Adolf Hitler". However, Slavicek comments that "a growing number of modern scholars ... reject the view that the treaty's more stringent provisions pushed Germany towards Nazism" and note the only connection between the two was "Hitler's genius for exploiting the unpopular treaty's propaganda value." Alex Woolf summarizes the conflicting arguments. On one hand, it is claimed that resentment of the treaty created a "mood of national humiliation and betrayal, which made it easier for the Nazis, who promised national revival to gain support" while on the other hand "some historians downplay" the treaty and highlight that "Germany was already an unstable country, on the brink of dictatorship, before 1919, because its constitution (written in 1871) tended to give too much power to extremist groups." Henig states "there was undoubtedly a 'German problem' in Europe in the 1920s which remained unresolved, but the ensuing Depression and the growth of extremism in Germany were not easy to forecast, and the coming to power of Hitler was by no means inevitable." Richard J. Evans expands on this point, arguing that it is untrue that Versailles caused the end of the Weimar Republic, contending that it was the Great Depression that put an end to German democracy; a depression that "owed little to the effects of Versailles and was only marginally influenced by the impact of reparations." Adam Tooze comments that in the first election following the "stabilization of 1924 ... the entire electorate of Germany had the opportunity to give their verdict on the achievements of the Weimar Republic". In doing so, Hitler's National Socialist Party gained a mere 2.5 per cent of the vote and "only 12 seats out of the 491 in the Reichstag. Tooze highlights that "by the autumn of 1928" the Nazis "were so cash-strapped ... that they were forced to call off their annual party rally" and that "sales of Mein Kampf had slumped so badly that Hitler's publishers decided to hold back his 'Second Book' for fear if spoiling the market." Fritz Klein comments that "there is doubtless a path leading from Versailles to Hitler." But he "cannot agree that Versailles made Hitler's takeover of power inevitable." Klein summarizes that "the Germans had a choice when they decided to take this path. In other words, they did not have to. Hitler's victory was not an unavoidable result of Versailles."

On the issue of if the treaty resulted in the Second World War, Bell notes that two schools of thought exist on the issue. The first, the Thirty Year War thesis states that the First World War "shook the foundations of Europe to an extent that was virtually irreparable" and the Treaty of Versailles "proceeded to make the situation worse rather than better" eventually "precipitating repeated crises and providing at least the circumstances, and arguably the causes, of European war." The opposing argument holds that Europe had reconciled their differences and was on the way to recovery, a recovery "cut off in its prime by the great depression and its dreadful consequence, the advent of Hitler." The German historian Detlev Peukert expands this line of thought. He states that "the achievements of the policy of rapprochement that was pursued between 1923 and 1929 can scarcely be exaggerated", and it was this policy "committed to political co-operation and economic integration" that became "the inevitable casualty when the world economy collapsed and policies of autarky and national self-interest took rot among the ruins" Richard Overy highlights that war was not an inevitable consequence of the treaty. He notes that "it is almost certain that if Hitler had not come to power in 1933, another German government would have continued the revisionist thrust and might have achieved through negotiation much of what Hitler ultimately achieved through unilateralism."

Hitler, writing in 1925, stated in Mein Kampf that Versailles treaty should be exploited and put forth his ideological vision for Germany's future. In regards to the treaty, he asked the following questions: "To what purpose could the Treaty of Versailles have been exploited? In the hands of a willing Government, how could this instrument of unlimited blackmail and shameful humiliation have been applied for the purpose of arousing national sentiment to its highest pitch? How could a well-directed system of propaganda have utilized the sadist cruelty of that treaty so as to change the indifference of the people to a feeling of indignation and transform that indignation into a spirit of dauntless resistance?" In establishing his ideological future for Germany, he wrote "to demand that the 1914 frontiers should be restored is a glaring political absurdity" and "for the future of the German nation the 1914 frontiers are of no significance." He believed this was the case since the pre-First World War borders did not include "all the members of the German nation." Hitler concluded this thoughts on the borders of Germany by noting that "we put an end to the perpetual Germanic march towards the South and West of Europe and turn our eyes towards the lands of the East. We finally put a stop to the colonial and trade policy of pre-war times and pass over to the territorial policy of the future. But when we speak of new territory in Europe today we must principally think of Russia and the border States subject to her." He further developed this line of thought, writing "without consideration of traditions and prejudices, Germany must find the courage to gather our people and their strength for an advance along the road that will lead this people from its present restricted living space to new land and soil, and hence also free it from the danger of vanishing from the earth or of serving others as a slave nation." Richard Overy further comments that examining Hitler's second book clarifies his goals "even more than [his] first". Overy states that "Hitler was not concerned just with treaty revision ... but saw in Germany's future the building of a solid racial core, the race-contest with international Jewry, and the build-up of sufficient military power to allow Germany to seize an economic empire in the spaces of the ill-defined 'east'". Hugh Trevor-Roper furthers this position, arguing that the goal of overthrowing Versailles was only a prelude to seizing Lebensraum in Eastern Europe for Germany with no regard as to where Germany's 1914 frontiers had been. Alexander Stilwell summarizes the argument against the Thirty Year War thesis and expands on the above points. He states "fundamentally, the Second World War was fought because of political ideas - ideologies." He continues "political extremism in post-First World War Germany brought to power Adolf Hitler, a man convinced of his own infallibility and almost divine calling to lead Germany to victory in a race war that would establish the Germans in their rightful position ... a war of conquest in which the inherent superiorty of the German race would be demonstrated and Germany's racial and ideological competitors would be destroyed, leaving Germany at the helm of a unified Europe." Stilwell concludes "this ideological dimension underpinned the reasons for the fighting".

Overall historical assessment

Catherine Lu notes that "the Versailles peace settlement represented the 'most far-reaching and the widest-ranging system of treaties made up to that time.'" Quoting the Allied and associated powers, Lu comments that "the Allies drafted the Treaty of Versailles, confident 'that it is not only a just settlement of the great war, but that it provides the basis upon which the peoples of Europe can live together in friendship and equality.'" However, as became apparent these noble intentions were problematic and historians are divided on the issue of if the treaty was just, too lenient, or too harsh.

A demonstration in Berlin, in 1919, against the Treaty of Versailles provisions regarding Posen and Danzig.

Albrecht-Carrie comments the peace treaties "were conditioned to a large extent by the previous history of Europe". In this light, when reexamining the treaty "the cessions of Belgium, Czechoslovakia and Lithuania were little more than pin pricks" and the "Danish cession was wholly justified." In regards to Alsace-Lorraine, he notes that Alsace was "not old French territory" yet "its restoration to France was, almost universally considered to have been warranted" and the French and Germans had almost reconciled on this issue during the inter-war period. He concedes that Poland "was looked upon by many as the great territorial crime perpetrated against Germany". This position is expanded upon by Richard Evans who argues that the German right was committed to an annexationist program of Germany annexing most of Europe during the war, and found any peace settlement unacceptable that did not leave Germany as the conqueror. Albrecht-Carrie argues against the German shock at the loss of territory to Poland. He notes that "the simple fact, which must be duly emphasized, [is] in her career of expansion, Germany had extended her rule over large sections of alien peoples." While "the German people had been a civilizing influence" they "had not known how to win the allegiance of the subject peoples who found in the defeat of the Central Empires their opportunity of liberation." Sally Marks notes that the territorial terms of the treaty "did not surprise Germany's cabinet, but shocked the people and generated bitterness." Marks states Gustav Stresemann, who she calls "Weimar's ablest foreign minister", "largely predicted" the losses that the treaty would demand. She highlights that the loss of Alsace-Lorraine and territory to Poland were "anchored in the fourteen points and the armistice" while the "north-Schleswig plebiscite" had been promised in 1866 "by an 1866 Prussian treaty". Marks further notes that "the losses - thanks partly to self-determination - were minuscule, amounting to Eupen-Malmedy permanently and the Saar Basin provisionally. Ewa Thompson comments how the treaty freed "the Polish nation imprisoned in the German empire" and likewise how "the Treaty of Versailles [also] liberated ... the Czechs, Slovaks, and members of other Eastern European states created as the European empires shrank."

Norman Davies highlights that while the Treaty of Versailles "delineated Poland’s frontier with Germany, and the Treaty of Saint-Germain delineated Czechoslovakia’s frontier with Austria" neither of them established the Polish-Czech border leaving a gaping legal hole that "simmered angrily for the next twenty years." Bernadotte Schmitt comments that the treaty, as well as the Paris Peace Conference as a whole, resulted "for the first time in European history" with "almost every European people ... allowed to obtain independence and a government of its own."

Nine malnourished men and women sit and stand posing for a photograph.

Hereros who had escaped the 1904 - 1907 Herero and Namaqua Genocide committed by the German Empire. The genocide was an example of how the Allies viewed Germany as incompetent in colonial management.

Moving onto the ex-German colonies, Schmitt argues that due to opposition from Belgium, France, and the British Dominions, the mandate system was not established as Wilson had originally conceived. Schmitt looks to Robert Lansing, who pointed out "that the mandatory system set up ... enabled Belgium and France and the British Dominions to acquire the former German colonies, practically in full sovereignty although not technically so, but without having to take over the public debts which those colonies had accumulated under German rule." Albrecht-Carrie states that any assertion that the United Kingdom and France had merely carried out a Victorian era annexation of colonies while hiding behind the treaty and the League of Nations is "an oversimplification". Weinberg supports this view, noting that the ex-German colonies had been turned into mandates: "territories under the control ... of the victors but not included in their territory or colonies and instead being prepared for self-government at some future time." Finally, Albrecht-Carrie comments that there had been "widespread ... belief in German colonial incompetence" and that it would be "inaccurate to say that it was the intent of the Treaty of Versailles merely to despoil Germany of her colonies" as the idea of mandates was "of American origin" and "perfectly sound". Schmitt comments that later on during the 1930s, the "government of Italy was fond of complaining that no mandates had been awarded to Italy" although as Schmitt highlights "it should be recorded that ... the Italians did not put in any claim for mandates, either of the German colonies or any part of the Ottoman Empire, because the Italian interest was then concentrated on the Adriatic."

Ronald Steel comments that while the intent of the policy of national self-determination - as supported by Woodrow Wilson and embedded within the treaty - was noble, it was not without its problems. "National borders did not correspond to ethnic ones" and "Woodrow Wilson dealt with this problem by pretending that it did not exist." Likewise, the redrawing of the map resulted in cases of "two or more peoples claim[ing] the same land". Corona Brezina argues that Article 80 of the treaty was an "effective ban on the union of Germany and Austria" and this "ran counter to the doctrine of national self-determination" as promoted by Wilson. Likewise, Bell comments that the "Germans could thus claim unfair treatment" as "a series of unofficial plebiscites showed overwhelming majorities in favour of union with Germany" yet "the treaty laid it down firmly that such a union was forbidden." As such, while the "victorious Allies had claimed loudly that they were fighting for democracy and self-determination" the situation arose were they "applied these great principles selectively, or even cynically." Antonio Cassese alleges "on the whole, self-determination was deemed irrelevant where the people’s will was certain to run counter to the victor’s geopolitical, economic, and strategic interests." Mark Mazower bluntly asserts that national determination "could never have been applied across the board". Albrecht-Carrie argues that the Allies did not want to reward "a defeated Germany by an increase of territory and population" by allowing Germany and German Austria to merge. Anthony Lentin supports this point, commenting that a Austro-German unification "would have made Germany even larger than in 1914" and added a further seven million people to the German population. William Keylor furthers this position, arguing that had the allies redrew the borders of Europe purely on the basis of ethnicity, this "would have had the paradoxical consequence of significantly strengthening the German state by authorizing it to expand its national territory far beyond the frontiers of [Otto von] Bismarck’s Reich." Finally, Weinberg notes that "the adoption of the national principles as the basis for the peace settlement meant that ... Germany, would survive the war" rather than be divided.

Elements of the Reichswehr, the professional Germany army that was established following the war in lines with the Treaty of Versailles, parade through Berlin during October 1924.

When formulating the treaty, the issue of conscription proved problematic. Lloyd George, "in response to British public opinion, was insistent on conscription being abolished in Germany." However, Ferdinand Foch wanted to allow Germany to retain a conscript army as this would justify France maintaining a similar force. When Lloyd George "insisted on a long-term volunteer army for German", Foch argued that "such an army would be more dangerous than a conscript army" and therefore an army of this kind "must be small". A compromise was reached, rather than a 200,000 strong German army of conscripts as "Foch was willing to allow", the treaty "provided for only 100,000 volunteers". A move that the Germans argued left them "defenseless against their enemies." Schmitt comments that "there is no reason to believe that the Allied governments were insincere when they stated at the beginning of Part V of the Treaty ... that in order to facilitate a general reduction of the armament of all nations, Germany was to be required to disarm first." Unfortunately, Schmitt argues, due to the American failure to ratify the treaty or join the League of Nations along with the Anglo-American failure "to ratify the treaties of alliance which had been the French price for the promise to disarm" this left "the French so nervous that, until too late, they were never willing to accept a measure of disarmament that would satisfy Germany." While the French were unwilling to disarm, so were the Germans. Schmitt notes that Germany evaded "the provisions of the Treaty relating to its own disarmament." Davies highlights a lack of foresight, which he deems "a curious oversight", within the treaty’s military restrictions: the treaty "did not include rockets in its list of prohibited weapons", which provided Wernher von Braun an area to research within eventually resulting in "his break came in 1943" leading to the development of the V-2 rocket.

On the whole, critics of the treaty have highlighted various issues with it. George Kennan called the treaty a "very silly humiliating and punitive peace". David Thomson argues that the treaty was "harsh in the wrong places and lenient in the wrong ways" and claims certain terms were "unjust, unilateral, discriminatory, harsh and unrealistic." Walter McDougall comments that "the Treaty of Versailles was not a failure, for it was never tried." He continues "everyone hated it, including the entire spectrum of French opinion. It is said to have been unfulfillable, for it gave the Germans no incentive to cooperate. ... The weakness of Versailles was not that it displeased Germany but that it also displeased the Allies. The Americans defected, the British turned pro-German under the impact of the postwar depression, and the tool the German industrialists and government discovered to wreck reparations – inflation – made the French plight increasingly desperate." Bell comments that from some perspectives it could be said that "the war shook the foundations of Europe to an extent that was virtually irreparable" and that "it is widely argued" that the treaty "proceeded to make the situation worse rather than better." Norman Davies comments that "the foundation of the League of Nations ... must be counted as a promising achievement" however it "contained several inbuilt flaws" rendering the organization impotent as it lacked American support and "no independent instruments of enforcement" resulting in it depending of the Anglo-French military whose armed forces were limited in range and lacked planes able to "fly non-stop to Danzig and back". Davies also comments that "by far the most obvious flaw in the so-called Versailles Settlement lay in the fact that the most turbulent parts of Europe lay in the East, far beyond its reach." Louise Slavicek highlights that "some critics have even accused the Allies of laying the foundations for the ethnic violence that led to the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s" although she counters this accusation by noting that the problems – like those between the Czechs and Slovaks - "did not originate with the Allies" or the peace settlements. Taking a more moderate approach, Charles Dobbs and Spencer Tucker take the view that "it matters little whether [the treaty] was too harsh or too lenient" as "it was never enforced".

On the other hand, Walter McDougall "argues that in a way" the treaty "was not harsh enough, or at least had not been carried out harshly enough, because it did not succeed in creating a viable balance of power and of economic potential between Germany and France." Niall Ferguson argues that when compared to outcome of the Second World War, the "Versailles peace was relatively lenient." He goes on to quote Andreas Hillgruber who states that the treaty was "too weak to be a 'Carthaginian peace'". The French historian Georges-Henri Soutou asserts it "would not have been easy" for the peacemakers "to do much better." Ruth Henig comments that "the great majority of British, German, French and American historians now generally agree that the treaty was ... 'relatively lenient'".

Leon Trotsky and the Soviet Russian delegation arrive in Brest-Litovsk and are met by officers from the staff of Field Marshall von Hindenburg.

Likewise, when comparing the treaty with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which Germany imposed on Soviet Russia in March 1918, numerous historians have noted the leniency of Versailles. Brest-Litovsk, "Germany’s Carthaginian Peace terms against Russia" was "right in front of the allied statesmen at the Peace of Paris." Brest-Lotovsk, came "two months after the announcement of the Fourteen Points" and appeared "even to [Woodrow] Wilson, to demonstrate that Germany had no right to demand or expect leniency." While Versailles stripped Germany of 25,000 square miles (65,000 km²) of territory and 7 million people, the German treaty "pushed Russia back to its pre-Petrine frontiers" by taking 1,300,000 square miles (3,400,000 km²) square miles of territory and 62 million people. This loss equated to one third of the Russian population, 25 per cent of their territory, around a third of the country’s arable land, three-quarters of its coal and iron, a third of its factories (totaling 54 per cent of the nation’s industrial capacity), and a quarter of its railroads. Bell comments that Versailles "compared quite favourably with the treatment meted out by Germany to defeated Russia", while Slavicek states that "the Versailles settlement appears almost mild" in comparison to Brest-Litovsk". Truitt asserts that the treaty "was probably the most punitive peace treaty signed since ancient times." Charles Dobbs and Spence Tucker state that "it is worth remembering that the Treaty of Brest Litovsk was much harsher on the defeated power" than Versailles was on Germany. Ian Bickerton states Versailles "was extremely lenient in comparison with the peace terms Germany had in mind to impose on the Allies" and "when contrasted with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk ... the Versailles treaty does appear very lenient." Fritz Fischer proposed, based off German archival sources including the Septemberprogramm written before the First Battle of the Marne, that Germany sought a similar peace for the whole of Europe. The September program was "an incredibly comprehensive shopping list of German war aims", in which Bethmann Hollweg called for France "to be destroyed as a great power, Russia reduced to the dimensions reached under Peter the Great, Belgium turned into a German vassal state, Luxemburg annexed outright, French and Belgian coastal areas and ore-mining districts likewise annexed, Russia and Britain replaced by Germany as the dominant power in the Middle East and Persia, the Scandinavian states and Holland brought into the German orbit, a 'Central African Colonial Empire' created as a reservoir of raw materials, and the states of central and eastern Europe from the North Sea to the Black Sea – friend, foe, and neutral alike – gathered under the umbrella of an economic alliance dominated by Germany" while "Ottoman Turkey as well as Habsburg Austria-Hungary, in effect, were to become German satellites."

Ruth Henig comments that until the 1950s, the general historical consensus on the treaty was that it had been conducted by vindictive powers. For example, Kennan talks of "the vindictiveness of the British and French peace aims". However, Klaus Schwabe highlights the work of Marc Trachtenberg who has attempted to revise the "cliché" of allied vindictiveness. Trachtenberg argues that the French were quite "moderate" rather than vindictive during the peace talks and "the real villain in Trachtenberg’s story ... is Britain, which according to him, clung to excessive reparation demands and thereby destroyed whatever chances existed for a reasonable solution of the reparation problem." However, Schwabe argues that this is an oversimplified view of the situation and Trachtenberg arrived at this "somewhat one-sided conclusion" by looking at "the reparation question" in isolation. David Stevenson, somewhat supports Trachtenberg's assertions. Stevenson argues since "the opening of the archives ... a much more detailed reconstruction of French policy" has occurred. He concludes "most commentators since the 1970s have been impressed by French moderation and defensiveness" and looks to Walter McDougall's work which asserts "Clemenceau's policy was "the best calculated to bring about a lasting settlement." However, Stevenson warns "the jury is still out, however, and there have been signs that the pendulum of judgment is swinging back the other way."

Europe in 1923, following the Paris Peace Conference

Irrespective of whether the treaty was just or unjust, historians have highlighted that the treaty did little to weaken Germany. Correlli Barnett argues that, in strategic terms, due to the treaty Germany was now in a superior position than she had been in 1914. Then, Germany′s eastern frontiers faced the Russian Empire and the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, both of whom in the past had balanced Germany's power. Due to the war both these empires had collapsed and in conjunction with the treaty, left Germany unrivalled. Barnett asserts that Poland was no match for Germany and in the west; France and Belgium were less economically vibrant and had smaller populations. Barnett concludes that rather than weakening Germany, the treaty instead "much enhanced" German power. Barnett argues that Britain and France should have "divided and permanently weakened" Germany by undoing Bismarck's work and partitioning Germany into smaller, weaker states so it could never have disrupted the peace of Europe again. By failing to do this and therefore not solving the problem of German power and restoring the equilibrium of Europe, Britain "had failed in her main purpose in taking part in the Great War". Weinberg supports this attack. He comments "though weakened by the war, Germany had been weakened less than her European enemies, and she had thus emerged relatively stronger potentially in 1919 than she had been in 1913." Weinberg further comments that "the very portion of the peace treaty that all Germans found most obnoxious, the revival of Poland" actually "protected Germany from her potentially most powerful and dangerous adversary, Russia." He continues that the various treaties created a patchwork of new nations in Central and Eastern Europe, and Germany "was now actually or potentially infinitely more powerful than any of" these countries, "and that there was practically no likelihood of those neighbors ever joining together against Germany."

The Japanese delegation at the peace talks.

Schmitt raises an interesting side note about the treaty. He highlights how the newly created states all had to abide by the Minority Treaties, however despite "all the punishment inflicted upon Germany ... the Allies did not impose a minorities treaty on Germany, although Germany was left with a considerable Polish minority." Impacting Germany throughout the peace talks was the ongoing Allied blockade of Germany. However, Marks comments it is a myth that there was a policy of "deliberate Allied starvation of countless Germans by maintaining the naval blockade." She highlights that while "Allied warships remained in place against a possible resumption of hostilities, the Allies offered food and medicine after the armistice, but Germany refused to allow its ships to carry supplies." Despite these problems, "and the efforts by [Germany’s] more conservative leaders to persuade American emissaries to delay shipments until Germany had a stable non-socialist government, Allied food arrived in Allied ships before the charge made at Versailles." Elisabeth Glaser supports this argument. She highlights that while there was disagreement amongst the allies in regards to the blockade, from the armistice onwards the blockade of Germany and her neutral neighbors was relaxed. A task force was established to help feed the German population and by May 1919 "Germany [had] became the chief recipient of American and Allied food shipments". Glaser concludes that "the very success of the relief effort had in effect deprived the conference of a credible threat to induce Germany to sign" the peace treaty. The treaty also impacted countries other than Germany. Weinberg comments that the Versailles peace conference presented the "first internationally visible sign of one of the major results of World War I, the breakup of the European colonial empires into independent political entities. The 'British Dominions' ... had earned their independence and their right to participate in the proceedings on their own by their share in the fighting." Likewise, Weinberg notes how the inclusion of the Japanese to the peace talks highlighted Japan's rise to power and European recognition to a non-European and non-neo-European power.

Charles Joseph Doherty, Minister of Justice, who, alongside the Minister of Customs Arthur Sifton, signed the treaty for Canada.

In accessing the overall impact of the treaty, Albrecht-Carrie comments that "the Treaty of Versailles, like any other treaty, was an expression of the power relationship at the time of its making. Beyond that, if it was to be a positive achievement, it had to lay the bases of future reconstruction" and "it attempted to do [this] in two ways": via disarming Germany and by creating the League of Nations. He continues, "the failure, however, cannot be laid to the Treaty of Versailles which by itself could not control the use to which these provisions were eventually put". Rather, "the whole edifice of Versailles ... created certain grievances" but also "redressed greater ones" and its failure came down to all involved parties and the failure of the League of Nations. Detlev Peukert argues that Versailles was far from the impossible peace that most Germans claimed it was during the inter-war period and while not without flaws was actually quite reasonable to Germany. Rather than it being the actual terms of the treaty that was harsh, it was the "Millenarianism|millenarian hopes" forged during the war that caused "the revanchist Versailles myth". The myth being what the people thought the treaty had done to them, "the shameful diktat of Versailles", rather than the reality of what it had done. With the public outrage focused on the myth, it "blinded them to the medium-term strategic advantage which the new realities created by Versailles and the other Paris treaties had given them." Schmitt highlights that while tradition in peace talks stated all parties should "meet on terms of equality", the allied powers were "well aware of great differences among themselves" and "fearful that if they admitted Germany to the ordinary verbal exchanges, the Germans would succeed in playing off Britain against France and both against the United States. Therefore, to protect themselves, they required that all negotiations between Germany and themselves should be in writing." This resulted in a major "psychological blunder because it enabled the Germans ever after to talk about the 'Diktat,' or the dictated peace of Versailles." Schmitt argues it was to avoid a repeat of this, why the Allies "demanded the unconditional surrender of Germany in the Second World War". He further argues that the treaties signed at the Paris Peace Conference "would have taken a different form" had the British and French been aware that the Americans would not ratify it as "the whole settlement was based on the assumption that the United States would be a member of the League [of Nations]." Schmitt argues "had the four Allies remained united, they could have forced Germany really to disarm, and the German will and capacity to resist other provisions of the treaty would have correspondingly diminished." Schmitt concludes that while the treaties "were not bad settlements", the peacemakers showed "irresolution, nor firmness, in dealing with the situation" and "committed many errors", which "the Germans took advantage of". Bell echoes Schmitt’s assessment. He comments that "it was natural enough that Germans should resent" their defeat in the war and the peace treaty, but it was surprising "to which the same view took hold among the victors" resulting in "the stability of the settlement" being "undermined by both vanquished and victors alike." Bell states while the following argument can be overly cynical, "the war destroyed the pre-1914 European balance [of power], and the peace could put nothing adequate in its place." However, he notes to the contrary it was believed that the errors made "were thought to not be beyond remedy" and "it was also hoped that the instability of the Continent could be remedied, on the one hand by the resurrection of something like the nineteenth-century 'Concert of Europe', an informal grouping of the great powers to provide a guiding influence in international affairs, and on the other by the development of the League of Nations."

A 1932 rally, in the Lustgarten, Berlin, against the against the 'diktat of Versailles'.

Sally Marks comments that following the peace, the German foreign office initiated a campaign of disinformation to spread the myths of the Stab-in-the-back, war guilt, and the continuation of the Allied blockade. The aim of this campaign, which included the "publication of forty volumes of carefully selected documents", was to "refute German responsibility" with the hope that "the entire treaty would collapse." The campaign was a partial success, persuading many. Marks notes that it was not until 1961 when Fritz Fischer examined the evidence and published his findings that the view of the treaty finally changed within the historical community, but by then "the propaganda and myths had forty years to become 'fact'". Bell supports this point, he notes how "German historians worked hard to undermine the validity of this clause, and their claims found a ready acceptance among 'revisionist' writers in France, Britain, and the USA." In regards to the enforcement of the treaty, Marks comments that "by 1925, much of the Versailles system was gone, and more followed Locarno". She notes in the 1924-25 period, enforcement of the treaty collapsed due to a lack of Allied unity to enforce the treaty via "non-military actions to compel fulfillment ... such as seizing custom receipts, taxing German exports to victors, surprise disarmament inspections, requiring German to tax to the level of the victors (as the treaty specified), or to transfer some railway profits". Stephen Schucker argues that "Anglo-US politicians and financiers, in forcing the 1924 Dawes settlement on France, destroyed Europe's best hope for stability" and the Locarno treaties "merely sealed this fateful development" resulting in the erosion of the balance of power and any check to "Germany's 'inevitable' revisionism." A.J.P. Taylor states "Locarno gave to Europe a period of peace and hope". Marks disagrees, and sides with Schucker stating Locarno "provided no solid peace, only a fragile respite of civility" and it marked the defeat of France and "Germany's return to diplomatic equality and potential superiority." Locarno, Marks argues, saw the defeat of France attempting to enforce and maintain the Treaty of Versailles due to a "combination of its allies with the enemy and the relaxation of its own will." However, Patrick O. Cohrs disagrees with the bleak assessments. He argues that Versailles had resulted in an "inherently unstable" Europe and created a Franco-German crisis. Attempting to learn from their mistakes "British and US policy makers, and their French and German counterparts," had attempted "to forge a more sustainable Euro-Atlantic international system ... to create ... a viable peace system" first in the west “and then to extend it, from a western nucleus including Germany, to the east." Thus Locarno resulted in Germany recognizing "the existing Franco-German status quo on the Rhine" while at the same time renouncing "a forcible revision of its eastern borders" although leaving Germany open to seek peaceful revisions. Likewise, France would accept the gradual return to power of Germany. Bell notes that during the 1920s "it appeared ... that the economic and social disruption left by the war had been overcome: currencies were stabilized, industrial production reached and passed the levels of 1913, threats of revolution diminished, and the new states settled down. It was not outrageously optimistic to think that things were looking up." Locarno, Cohrs argues, "offered the best prospects for Polish and Czechoslovak security, and their peaceful coexistence with Germany". Thus, Locarno "marked 'the real dividing line between the years of war and the years of peace' in post-First World War Europe."

See also

• Wisconsin Plan, starting in 1914
• Decree on Peace, 1917
• Treaty of Bucharest (1918)
• International Opium Convention, incorporated into the Treaty of Versailles as Article 295
• Little Treaty of Versailles, 1919
• Spa Conference, 1920
• Agreement Regarding the Restoration of the State of Peace between Germany and China (1921).
• Treaty of Peace between Germany and the United States of America, 1921
• Washington Naval Conference, 1922-23
• Treaty of Lausanne, 1923
• Causes of World War II
• Appeasement
• Potsdam Agreement, 1945
• Paris Peace Treaties, 1947
• Treaty of San Francisco, 1951

Notes

Footnotes

Citations

References

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• Lovin, Clifford R. (1997). A School for Diplomats: the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. University Press Of America. ISBN 978-076180-755-1. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |lastauthoramp= ignored (|name-list-style= suggested) (help)
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• McDougall, Walter A. (1979), "Political Economy versus National Sovereignty: French Structures for German Economic Integration after Versailles", The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 51 (No. 1), The University of Chicago Press: 4–23, JSTOR 1877866 {{citation}}: |issue= has extra text (help); |volume= has extra text (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Mommsen, Hans; Foster, Elborg (1988). The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy. The University of North Crolina Press. ISBN 978-080784721-3. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |lastauthoramp= ignored (|name-list-style= suggested) (help)
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• Zaloga, Steven; Gerrard (Illustrator), Howard (2002). Poland 1939: The Birth of Blitzkrieg. Campaign. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-184176408-5. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |lastauthoramp= ignored (|name-list-style= suggested) (help)

External links

• Huang, Jian-zhong (1999). "My 1919". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 7/9/2013. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help) A modern Chinese movie about the Treaty of Versailles. The Synopsis reads "To the Chinese, the Conference at Versailles was more of an insult at their dignity and sovereignty than a celebration of peace."
• Museum of Australian Democracy. "Treaty of Versailles 1919 (including Covenant of the League of Nations)". Retrieved 7/9/2013. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help) A description of the treaty and photographs of the documents.
• Nobelprize.org. "The Nobel Peace Prize 1925, joint winner Austen Chamberlain". Retrieved 7/9/2013. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
• Nobelprize.org. "The Nobel Peace Prize 1926, joint winner Aristide Briand". Retrieved 7/9/2013. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
• Nobelprize.org. "The Nobel Peace Prize 1926, joint winner Gustav Stresemann". Retrieved 7/9/2013. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)

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