1919-39: 1. Peace Treaties

Question 1

Who were the Big Three?

Answer 1

• USA - Woodrow Wilson
• GB - David Lloyd George
• France - Georges ‘Tiger’ Clemenceau

Question 2

Which victorious nations felt left out?

Answer 2

Italy and Japan

Question 3

What were the Big 3’s common aims?

Answer 3

• Avoid another WWI at any cost
• Punish Germany for WWI (they disagreed over how much to punish G)
• Weaken Germany to prevent another war (disagreed over how much)
• Germany and allies should pay Reparations to pay for the costs of war

Question 4

Wilson’s aims (USA)

Answer 4

Idealistic: based mainly on his ‘14 Points for Peace’ of Jan 1918 but some ideas had changed by the end of that year

• Prevent future war
• Create a League of Nations
• Disarm the major powers
• Do not punish Germany too harshly

Question 5

Problems with Clemenceau’s aims

Answer 5

Much harsher on Germany than USA and GB - could they find a compromise?

Question 6

Many French people (including President Poincare) believed that Clemenceau was too…

Answer 6

…lenient (ie, not harsh enough) on Germany at Versailles and so the Tiger became unpopular and lost the next election

Question 7

What were Lloyd George’s aims (GB)?

Answer 7

• Between USA and France’s aims
• Germany must accept blame for starting war
• Germany and its defeated allies should pay Reparations to GB to pay for the cost of war (including billions of pounds owed to USA)
• Germany’s army and navy must be weakened (so it was no longer a threat to peace or British Empire)

Question 8

How were the other peace treaties different to Versailles?

Answer 8

War Guilt Clause

• only Germany had to accept blame for starting the war (though Austria had attacked Serbia)

League of Nations

• Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria were allowed to join the League sooner than Germany; Turkey did not join until 1932

Question 9

Why did the victors not get everything that they wanted?

Answer 9

• The Big Three powers had different aims
• Wartime commitments and secret treaties
• The collapse of Russia and Austro-Hungary
• The terms of the Armistice in 1918
• Public opinion in the victorious countries

Question 10

What were the victors’ wartime commitments and secret treaties

Answer 10

• Promises had been made to countries to encourage them to fight
• Japan had been promised land in China & German colonies in Asia;
• Italy had been promised land from Austria, Turkey and German colonies

Question 11

How did the collapse of Russia and Austro-Hungary affect the peace treaties?

Answer 11

• Russia: Bolshevik/Communist Revolution 1917 and Civil War, so could not be involved in the peace talks
• New states sprang up along the edge of the old Russian Empire (eg Finland)
  
  • the peacemakers had to accept their existence and listen to their demands
• Austro-Hungarian Empire disintegrated into new, smaller countries
• Peacemakers could not make major changes to these new states such as Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia

Question 12

What does Armistice mean?

Answer 12

Armistice means both

• a cease-fire and
• the terms which are accepted by both sides to allow the cease-fire to happen

Germany had accepted particularly harsh cease-fire/armistice terms and many of these were therefore added to the final treaty

Question 13

What were the terms of the Armistice in 1918?

Answer 13

• Reparations
• Germany to leave Alsace-Lorraine
• Demilitarisation of Rhineland

Question 14

How did public opinion in the victorious countries affect the peace treaties?

Answer 14

• People were sickened and horrified by WWI
• Public opinion was usually in favour of treating the defeated enemies very harshly as punishment for the war and to stop war breaking out ever again
• People wanted the war to mean something: it should mean the end of all war in the future!
• Each country’s people had their own demands regarding land, Reparations, how to treat Germany.
• The peace-making politicians had to listen to these public demands.

Question 15

What were the terms of the Treaty of Versailles (28th June 1919)?

Answer 15

• War Guilt Clause (Clause 231)
• Reparations
• Demilitarisation of Germany
• Loss of German land and people
• Loss of colonies
• Germany was not allowed to join the League of Nations

Question 16

Why was the treaty called a ‘diktat’?

Answer 16

The Treaty was dictated on to Germany, who had to accept the terms within 15 days or face another war

Question 17

What was the War Guilt Clause?

Answer 17

Article 231: Germany had to accept responsibility for starting WWI, so it had to accept punishment for starting the war

Question 18

What was the cost of the reparations?

Answer 18

• £6,600 million
• coal to France, and
• cows to Belgium

Question 19

What did the demilitarisation of Germany achieve?

Answer 19

• No troops allowed in Rhineland
  
  • (a ‘demilitarised zone’)
• Germany’s military forces were reduced
  
  • 100,000 soldiers
  • no conscription allowed
• no
  
  • aeroplanes
  • tanks
  • U-boats
• only 6 battleships

Question 20

What German land and peoples were lost?

Answer 20

• No Anschluss (uniting) of Germany with Austria
• Alsace-Lorraine returned to France
• Saar run by League of Nations
  
  • for 15 years and
  • then given a plebiscite to decide who should rule it
• East Prussia split from rest of Germany
  
  • because the Polish Corridor land was given to the new state of Poland
• Around 4m Germans were now no longer ruled by Germany
  
  • why weren’t they given national self-determination too?

Question 21

What happened to Germany’s colonies?

Answer 21

GB and France were given ‘mandates’ to run them

• e.g., German East Africa run by GB

Question 22

What was the importance of Germany not being allowed to join the League of Nations?

Answer 22

• Germany had to prove that it was peace-loving first
  
  • Germany was therefore left out of major international decisions

Question 23

Why were so many Germans unhappy with the Versailles Treaty? (humiliation)?

Answer 23

• Versailles treated Germany more harshly than the treaties with other countries
  
  • (eg Austria’s treatment under the Treaty of St Germain)
• It was a diktat
• It was not ‘Peace with Honour’
  
  • many Germans believed that the war was a draw but they were being treated as if they had lost the war

Question 24

Why were so many Germans unhappy with the Versailles Treaty? (unfairness)

Answer 24

• It was not purely based on Wilson’s 14 Points
  
  • (but these had been withdrawn from the negotiation table by late 1918)
• Germany was blamed for starting the war
  
  • BUT Austria had started it really, and many countries should have shared the blame
• Vulnerability
  
  • Without a strong army and navy, Germany felt vulnerable to attack in future
• 4m Germans were denied national self-determination

Question 25

Could all of the Peace Treaties be justified at the time? Arguments against

Answer 25

• Reparations would take decades to repay
• Humiliation: loss of land, people, military power
• Resentment led to WW2 via rise of Hitler
• Clemenceau lost the next election (some French thought the treaties were not harsh enough)

Question 26

Could all of the Peace Treaties be justified at the time? Arguments for

Answer 26

• Germany had treated Russia harshly at Brest Litovsk
• Quick actions were required as Europe was in chaos
  
  • (governments were vulnerable to revolution)
• Aimed to end all future wars
• Public opinion demanded harsh treatment
• Compromises between the Allies were essential for the treaties’ success