Why did the allies want to punish Germany?

Answer 1

The allies punished Germany because they felt Germany was responsible for the war. Countries that fought were exhausted, their economies and industries were in a bad state. There were many casualties in the war and almost every family had lost someone. French land had been damaged and the Germans were held responsible. there was a strong feeling that Germany should pay for the damage and destruction caused by the war. France wanted to punish and cripple Germany so that they could not start another war.

France and England were in no mood to be conciliatory after the millions that were killed in WWI. The treaty of Versailles served 2 purposes, to humiliate Germany and to make sure she could not cause a war again. Great job of doing #1, big failure at #2.

Also, an unstated goal was that by blaming Germany, the Allied politicians could avoid blame for their complete mismanagement of the war. By faulting Germany, the vast political errors of getting involved in a World War, and the military blunders of the conduct of the War, could be papered over. Since the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire had both disintegrated at the end of the war, Germany was really the only one of the Central Powers still available for the Allied leadership to use as a scapegoat.

On a related note, the Treaty of Versailles was not a complete aberration, in that a fair number of prior treaties had included provisions that forced restitution payments, stripped the loser of territory, and imposed military or political restrictions on the loser. What was unusual of the ToV was the inclusion of the "War Guilt" clause (effectively blaming Germany for the entire war), the size of the restitution payments, and the massive disarmament levels. These are particularly noteworthy, since Germany (while obviously on the losing side) had both already beaten one of the Allies (Russia), and had yet to actually lose any territory to the Allies.

Frankly, while the German negotiating position was poor and the new German government inexperienced, part of the blame for the ToV being the way it is falls on the German government; Germany should have risked a (short) continuation of fighting rather than accede to essentially dictated peace terms. Given Germany's political and military situation in the Fall of 1918, Germany could have held out for a negotiated peace, rather than accept a dictatedone. A negotiated peace would almost certainly have looked very much like the ToV, but likely would have been significantly less punitive (much reduced restitution, more lenient military reductions, possibly less territory loss), and almost certainly would not have had the War Guilt clause.

Answer 2

they wanted to take revenge. they felt that Germany had started the war and that all the death and destruction was their fault one of their excuses to punish Germany so badly the was the fact that in the treaty of Brest-litovsk 1918 Germany had been crueler to Russia than the allies were being to Germany also the fact that Germany had planned to pay their war dept by getting the allies to pay up didn't help their cause.

Answer 3

The allies wanted to punish Germany because they felt like Germany was responsible for the war. Countries that fought were exhausted, their economies and industries were in a bad state. There was a strong feeling that Germany should pay for the damage and destruction caused by the war. France wanted to punish and cripple Germany so that they could not start another war.