How damaging was the Treaty of Versailles? Flashcards
War Guilt reparations?
Wilson (US president) thought Germany should only have to pay where they had broken international law.
Britain and France strongly favoured Germany paying for the war.
Allies set up a reparations commission to work out exactly how much Germany should pay back.
All countries in the war had spent heavily and all countries had borrowed from USA. France owed an estimated $4 trillion.
Territorial provision?
Germany lost territory of economic importance as well as territory of sympathetic importance, such as West Prussia.
Loss of land to Poland caused the greatest upset.
Many Germans argued that the terms of the treaty were hypocritical in asserting the principle of self-determination for Europe, not for Germany.
Psychological impacts?
As far as the Germans were concerned it was a defensive war against the Slavs.
Germany technically didn’t lose the war because Germany wasn’t invaded.
How were the Germans humiliated?
The navy was destroyed, as otherwise they would have to hand it over to the British.
They handed over their colonies.
The Rhineland was demilitarised.
German people were divided, some living under Poles, Czechs, Belgians. This resulted in anger and helplessness.
Hyper-inflation
Prices of bread, fuel, taxes and so on rose dramatically.
The government printed more money to try to deal with huge amounts of debt.
Germany also over-payed before 1914 as they were convinced they would win the war. Furthermore they thought the war would only last 6 weeks and so they didn’t really have a developed war economy for the 4 year duration.
Causes of hyper-inflation
French Prime minister Poincare refused to allow the suspension of the reparation payments. He demanded 60% of dye stuff industry on the Rhine and the state mines.
By 1923, there were 663 billion marks in circulation.
How did the Ruhr crisis of 1923 lead to more money being printed?
The Ruhr Crisis of 1923 led to more money being printed. Cuno’s government encouraged the workers in the Ruhr to offer passive resistance to the Franco-Belgian occupation of the Ruhr. This passive resistance led to a sharp reduction to the amount of coal delivered to France and Belgium. So the Germans had to pay millions to make up for those who lost out.
Example of hyperinflation - price of 1kg of bread
In 1913 it would cost 0.29 marks, by summer of 1923 it cost 1,200 marks. During November 1923 it cost 428,000,000,000.
