1 Treaty of Versailles Flashcards
What were the motives and aims of President Woodrow Wilson?
Impact from WW1:
- Only joined the war in 1917 and had 120,000 deaths
- Never experienced airraids/bombings
Aims:
- Not be too harsh on Germany since that could lead to another war. Additionally resentment from Germans could potentially lead to communism seeming more appealing and an eventually communist takeover.
- Wanted self-determination for small countries that had once been part of the European empires and wanted to strengthen democracy in existing countries as well.
- Wilson was also keen on international cooperation. He believed that countries should cooperate to achieve world peace and this could be done through a ‘League of Nations’.
Overall:
Wilson was the most optimistic and idealist and wanted his 14 points to become a reality in the TOV.
What were the motives and aims of Prime Minister Lloyd George?
Impact from WW1:
- Britain had lost 750,000 men, borrowed £9 billion
- Experienced air raids
Aims:
- Publicly praised Wilson, but was less positive privately. He once complained to his officials that Wilson came to Paris like a missionary to rescue the Europeans.
- Like Wilson, he did not want to punish Germany too harshly as he did not want Germany to seek revenge by starting another war.
- However, Lloyd George had the needs of the British Empire in mind. He wanted Germany to lose its navy and its colonies as they threatened the empire.
- The British also did not want to punish Germany too harshly as they wanted to continue trading with them. Before the war, Germany had been Britain’s second largest trading partner.
- However, Lloyd George fought the 1918 General Election on the slogans ‘Hang the Kaiser’ and ‘Make Germany Pay’. Britain had lost 1 million men in the war and there was high anti-German sentiment amongst the British public.
Overall:
Had to balance the British Public’s want for revenge and his desire for a fairer treaty. Occupied the middle ground between Wilson and Clemenceau.
What were the motives and aims of Prime Minister George Clemenceau?
Impact from WW1:
- Over 2⁄3 of men who had served in the French army had been killed or wounded (1.5 million dead).
- Much of the fighting in WW1 happened in North East France, where mines, railways, factories, bridges and farmland had been destroyed.
Aims:
- Clemenceau wanted money to help rebuild France.
- Clemenceau wanted to dramatically reduce the German armed forces and cripple its economy so that it could not attack France.
- He also wanted to push back Germany’s border to the river Rhine, so that France was less vulnerable to attack in the future.
Overall:
Most harsh towards Germany since they were most significantly impacted and therefore wanted revenge for WW1. French President even wanted to split Germany into
Why were there disagreements and compromises between the Big Three?
- Wilson had to agree to French plans for the Rhineland and Saar - USA had not suffered as badly as France, which explains Clemenceau’s harsher attitude to Germany.
- Clemenceau and Lloyd George had to agree to Wilson’s plans for self-determination for eastern European countries, despite reservations.
- Clemenceau criticised Britain for being too lenient on Germany in Europe, and only harsh when it came to German colonies and the navy.
- Lloyd George was unhappy about Wilson’s insistence on access to the sea for all nations and was uneasy about self-determination (as the British Empire ruled lots of overseas colonies).
- None of the Big Three was entirely satisfied - too lenient for Clemenceau, who was rejected by the French electorate in 1920; Lloyd George later described it as ‘a great pity’ though it made him popular in the short run; Wilson was disappointed, thinking it too harsh on Germany, and the US Congress refused to ratify it.
What were the terms of TOV?
LAMB
Land:
- Anschluss (union between Austria and Germany) was forbidden.
- Alsace-Lorraine to France
- Eupen and Malmédy to Belgium
- Northern Schleswig to Denmark (plebiscite)
- Saarland run by League for 15 years, then a plebiscite
- West Prussia and Posen to Poland (the Polish Corridor)
- Upper Silesia to Poland
- Danzig made a free city, run by League
- Germany’s overseas empire was taken away. Former German colonies, such as Cameroon, became mandates controlled by the League of Nations, which effectively meant that France and Britain controlled them. German East Africa to Britain, Cameroon to France, New Guinea to Australia, Samoa to New Zealand.
- Large areas of German land were used to create countries for people who had previously been ruled by others (e.g., Poland and Czechoslovakia). Altogether, Germany lost 10% of its land in Europe.
- The Polish Corridor was a strip of land that the Treaty of Versailles gave to Poland, granting the country access to the Baltic Sea. The corridor was a physical barrier that separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany. Danzig was also taken from Germany and given to Poland.
Armed Forces:
- The German army was restricted to 100,000 men and conscription was banned.
- The Rhineland became a demilitarised zone. This meant that no German troops were allowed in that area.
- The German navy could only have 15,000 sailors, 6 battleships, and no submarines.
- Germany could not have an air force or armoured vehicles
Money:
- Germany had to pay a reparations figure of £6.6 billion in instalments with Germany to continue paying until 1984.
- France received coal from the Saarland for 15 years.
Blame:
- Article 231 of the Treaty stated that Germany had to take responsibility for starting the war.
Germany was not allowed to join the League of Nations until it showed that it was a peace-loving nation.
What was the Paris Peace Conference?
- Germany was not initially invited to the Paris Peace Conference (they could not represent German interests)
- The Germans were shown the proposed Treaty of Versailles, with no option for negotiation.
- The Germans published a rebuttal, arguing that the treaty was unfair, but they were ignored. On 28 June 1919, the delegates met at the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles, near Paris, and forced two Germans to sign the treaty.
- The Germans saw the treaty as a ‘Diktat’ - an imposed settlement.
- 32 nations were represented.
- Main decisions taken by Big Three (Woodrow Wilson, Clemenceau, Lloyd George).
- Orlando, Prime Minister of Italy, had ambitions to be one of the Big Four, but with little success.
- Big Three were advised by diplomats, lawyers and experts, but often ignored their advice.
- Representatives of defeated countries were not invited.
What were the politcal consequences of the TOV on Germany up to the end of 1923?
1 Reputation of the Weimar government:
- The Weimar politicians became known as the ‘November Criminals’ for signing the armistice in which Germany surrendered in the war.
- The ‘stab-in-the-back’ myth also developed: the belief that the German Army did not lose the First World War on the battlefield and the Weimar Government instead surrendered Germany when they did not need to.
- They were also seen as traitors for signing the Treaty of Versailles.
- Spartacist Revolt (took place before the signing of the Treaty of Versailles) shows how the WG was hated.
2 Political uprisings: The Kapp Putsch:
- Bands of ex-soldiers called Friekorps were ordered to disband by the government as their existence broke the military terms of the Treaty of Versailles.
- Led by Wolfgang Kapp, 5,000 armed men marched on Berlin to protest and overthrow the Weimar government.
- When President Ebert ordered the head of the Reichswehr to resist the rebels, he replied ‘Reichswehr does not fire upon the Reichswehr’. The regular army refused to stop the Freikorps.
- They declared a new government and invited the Kaiser to return from exile. The Weimar government was forced to flee.
- The government seemed to be doomed but it was the workers that came to their rescue.
- The industrial workers of Berlin declared a general strike
- Essential services (gas, electricity, water and transport) stopped, and the capital was brought to a halt.
- After four days, Kapp realised he could not govern. He fled but was caught and put in prison, where he later died. The Weimar Government returned (it was very lucky!)
3 Political violence:
- Germany’s foreign minister Walther Rathenau was murdered by extremists in June 1922.
What were the economic consequnces of the TOV on Germany up to the end of 1923?
Occupation of the Rhur:
Causes:
- The first instalment of £50 million was paid in 1921, but in 1922 nothing was paid.
- As a result, in January 1923, 60,000 French and Belgian troops invaded the Ruhr (a rich, industrial area of Germany) and began to take what was owed to them in the form of raw materials and goods.
Response:
- The German government ordered workers to follow a policy of ‘passive resistance’ –
refusing to work or co-operate with the foreign troops and instead go on strike. In
return the government continued to pay their wages.
Impact:
- The French responded firmly – in the Krupp steel works, workers refusing to take orders were shot at. Overall, 132 were killed and over 100,000 were expelled from the area.
- The halt in industrial production in the Ruhr meant Germany had no goods to trade. This, coupled with the fact that the government needed to pay the striking workers, the government simply printed money.
- As more money came into circulation, prices and wages rocketed. Prices went excessively high.
- The price of a loaf of bread went from 0.63 marks in 1918 to 201,000,000,000 (201 billion) in 1923.
- From the mid-1922 to mid-1923, prices became 135 times higher.
- Prices increased so rapidly that restaurants stopped printing menus, as the prices would have gone up before people had finished eating.
- People would go shopping with wheelbarrows to carry the amount of money they needed
- By autumn 1923 it cost more to print a note than the note was worth.
What were the social consequnces of the TOV on Germany up to the end of 1923?
Arguments that the Treaty of Versailles was justified
German hypocrisy:
- At the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 the Germans made the French pay five billion francs and stationed troops in France until it was paid.
- In 1918 Germany and Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Germany took 1⁄3 of the Russian empire’s population, 1⁄3 of its agricultural land, and 3⁄4 of its industries.
Self-inflicted problems:
- Other states had raised taxes to pay for the war. The Kaiser’s government had not done this, it had simply allowed debts to mount up because it planned to pay Germany’s war debts by extracting reparations from the defeated states. The cost of the First World War for Germany is estimated to be in the region of $38 billion
Punishment:
- The allies believed that it was German military ambition that was to blame for the outbreak of the war - this was reflected by the inclusion of Article 231 in the Treaty of Versailles which made Germany accept full responsibility for the war. Almost 40 million people died in WWI.
The treaty could have been harsher:
- The French President (Poincare) even wanted Germany broken into a collection of smaller states.
- Clemenceau himself wanted the German border pushed back to the river Rhine
Arguments that the Treaty of Versailles was not jsutified.
Germany was destroyed with no chance of recover:
- £6.6 billion in reparations
- Hyperinflation caused
- Lost 10% of land
- The economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that the reparations figure would cripple the German economy and lead to political consequences.
Hindsight:
- The treaty facilitated the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party.
Diktat:
- Treaty was not signed or created in a way that was fair to the Germans. They had no say, could not protest, and were forced to sign it.
