Topic 3: Impact of the treaty and wider settlement Flashcards
What were the Big three pleased by in the treaty?
Georges Clemenceau
- France gained Alsace-Lorraine.
- Germany had no army present in the Rhineland.
David Lloyd George
- Britain had naval supremacy over Germany.
- The British empire gained more colonies.
Woodrow Wilson
- The creation of the League of Nations.
What were the Big three unhappy about in the treaty?
Georges Clemenceau
- The reparations: the French thought Germany should pay much
more.
- Germany being allowed to have an army, even a small one.
- The Rhineland not being completely taken away from Germany.
David Lloyd George
- The harsh reparations meaning Britain would lose trade with
Germany.
- The threat of a possible future war as Germany was unhappy.
Woodrow Wilson
- The 14 points of peace had been ignored in the treaty terms.
- The harshness of the treaty terms.
Why couldn’t the Big Three get everything they wanted?
- Europe was very unstable so the Big three were under pressure to reach an agreement quickly.
- The Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires had collapsed, leaving countries without stable governments. Each politician had to get re-elected.
- The citizens had been fed anti-Germany propaganda during the war and felt little mercy towards the losers.
- Wilson wanted the USA to join the League of Nations, but the US senate followed a policy of isolationism and refused this.
- Wilson and Lloyd George disagreed over the original terms of the armistice that Germany had signed in 1918.
- During the war, countries had been promised rewards for joining the side of the Allies. The Big three had to keep these promises, even if they weren.t in everyone’s best interests.
- The Big three each had different and contrasting aims and had to compromise.
How did the Allied citizens react to the Treaty of Versailles?
Britain
- Propaganda during the war had taught the Brits to despise the
Germans, and lots of British soldiers had been killed in the war.
- British people thought that the treaty was fair, and could have
even been harsher.
- Lloyd George was treated as a hero and newspaper said that they
would never be threatened by Germany again.
France
- People were furious as they believed the treaty was not harsh
enough and Germany should suffer as much as France had during
the war.
- People felt Clemenceau had not done enough to get revenge so he
was voted out in the next election.
- There were terms that they liked though that included gaining
control of the Saar and its coalfields for 15 years.
USA
- The USA had joined the war in 1917, and they weren’t affected that
much so the Americans didn’t want revenge in the same way that
Britain and France did.
- Many people felt that the treaty was too harsh.
- The USA wanted o follow the policy of isolationism.
- The US senate refused to approve the treaty r allow the USA to join
the LoN.
Why did German people hate the treaty so much?
1) The war guilt clause, forced them to take responsibility for the war, which they hated as it was seen to be humiliating.
2) They had been told that they were winning the war, so they felt betrayed by the gov. People called those who’d signed the armistice the November criminals.
3) People were starving as Britain had blockaded the German ports during the war, so little food had been imported. They were desperate and needed help; they didn’t see how they could cope with the punishment they were facing.
4) The Kaiser had been forced to abdicate before the treaty was signed, so people didn’t know how the country would be run. They also felt that the person who was responsible for the far (Kaiser) had been punished, so there wasn’t need for further punishment.
5) The German people felt vulnerable, they were hated by their old enemies and without a large army to defend them they could be attacked easily.
6) 13% land was lost to other countries so 6 million people found they were no longer living in Germany.
7) The German people felt the treaty was forced on them hence them calling it a diktat.
Timeline of impacts of the Treaty of Versailles?
1920: The Kapp Putsch - an attempted revolution in Germany.
1921: Reparations set at £6,600 million
1923: January - The Ruhr crisis, France invades Germany to take goods from factories when Germany fails to make a reparations payment; the German gov pays workers to strike so there are no goods for the French to take, and prints off more banknotes to pay them leading to hyperinflation.
1923: November - The Munich Putsch.
1924: USA lends Germany 800 million gold marks in the Dawes plan.
What were the other treaties that had to have been made for Germany’s allies?
Country: Austria
Name of Treaty: Treaty of St Germain
Date: 10 September 1919
Land: Land taken to create new countries Czechoslovakia and
Yugoslavia.
Reparation: Agreed, but the amount was never fixed.
Military restrictions: 30,000 in army; no conscriptions; no navy.
Other terms: Forbidden to unite with Germany.
Country: Bulgaria
Name of Treaty: Treaty of Neuilly
Date: 27 November 1919
Land: Lost land to Yugoslavia and Greece.
Reparation: £100 million
Military restrictions: 20,000 in army; no conscriptions; no air force; only 4 battleships.
Other terms: None
Country: Hungary
Name of Treaty: Treaty of Trianon
Date: 4 June 1920
Land: Lost land to Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Austria.
Reparation: Agreed, but the amount was never fixed.
Military restrictions: 30,000 in army; no conscriptions; only 3 patrol boats.
Other terms: None.
Country: Turkey
Name of Treaty: Treaty of Sevres
Date: 10 August 1920
Land: Split up the Turkish Empire so Turkey lost nearly all its land in Europe.
Reparation: None
Military restrictions: 50,000 in army; 7 sailboats; 6 torpedo boats.
Other terms: Dardanelles and Bosphorus straits were opened to other countries.
What was the impact of the treaties and problems faced by new states?
- Losing land meant the Austrian and Hungarian economies collapsed in 1921.
- People in Turvey revolted over the Treaty of Sevres, so it was replaced by the treaty of Lausanne in July 1923. This was symbolic as it proved that Britain was willing to undermine the treaties and they couldn’t be enforced.
- Rather that being controlled by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, East Europe was now divided into lost of small countries.
- Poland was re-established as an independent country - it was given land previously owned by Germany which caused lots of problems such: Germans living in the new country were unhappy and Russia argued about Poland’s eastern borders; Poland had no natural borders, so it couldn’t be defended easily.
- Germany was split by the Polish corridor which was a strip of land that gave Poland access to the sea. Germany was split in two which weakened it and caused much more resentment towards Poland.
What were the strengths and weaknesses of the treaty?
Strengths
- The war had caused lots of damage so the reparations were needed
to rebuild.
- France regained Alsace-Lorraine.
- Areas that had not wanted to be part of the A-H Empire, like
Czechoslovakia and Poland were given independence.
Weaknesses
- New states created, but Poland was weakened as it was surrounded
by enemies with borders difficult to defend.
- Austria and Hungary’s economies crashed in 1921.
- Lloyd George & Wilson feared the treaties would cause another war.
- None of the Big three were satisfied with the treaty.
- People in the defeated countries hated the treaties and felt
humiliated by them.
