Treaty of Versailles

PROVISIONS

• The treaty established nine new nations.
• It carved five areas out of the Ottoman Empire and gave them to France and Great Britain as mandates, or temporary colonies.
• Barred Germany from maintaining an army.
• Required Germany to return the region of Alsace-Lorraine to France and pay reparations, or war damages, amounting to $33 billion to the Allies.

WEAKNESSES

• Weakened the ability of the Treaty of Versailles to provide a lasting peace in Europe.
• Eventually lead to the Second World War
• Humiliated Germany-contained a war-guilt clause forcing them to admit sole responsibility for starting World War I.

At the Treaty of Versailles, the German leader as well as the allied leaders who opposed him met in Louis XVI's Versailles court. Since the Germans were on the losing side of war, they were targeted and hit the most debts and damages. The powers agreed that the Germans must pay for all damages to all nations as well as Germany itself. They had to agree on it and as a result, came into a major economic depression. Cut down its military, eliminated air force and much militial units to keep Germany in stability. The people were poor and felt their pride hurt in agreeing to such a deal were Adolf Hitler would later promise to restore Germany. Basically, Its humiliating because they paid for all damages and became poor and defeated.

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Summary: They were mad about Article 231, the so called War Guild clause, which declared Germany was responsible for starting World War I.

Hope this helped!

Sources: Glencoe World History book.

• Germany had to pay the Allies for the cost of the war
• Germany had to give back all land they acquired during the war
• Germany had to forfeit all their overseas territories
• Germany had to admit they were wrong for starting World War I

Germany was basically humiliated and devastated by the Treaty of Versailles. However, it quickly recovered and fascism arose with Hitler. This then brought about World War II, which was mostly fought for revenge of losing World War I.

There was anger throughout Germany when the conditions were made public.

Also, the Nazi's used the treaty's ridiculous terms to rally people to their cause.

The War Guilt Clause said that Germany had caused the war, so they had to be punished for it. The reality was that Germany wasn't even the first country to declare war- they were the third, after Austria and Russia. But the theory was that Germany had pressured Austria to declare war first, so it was their fault.

Secondly, Germany hadn't been completely defeated when the war ended. The German Army was still fighting in France when the armistice was signed in November 1918; Allied soldiers had not set foot on German soil since the war began. Now, to be fair, the Germans were definitely losing the war- in autumn 1918, the Allies had begun a major offensive operation that was forcing the Germans to retreat. It seemed that at any moment, the German Army would completely fall apart.

But the fact that the Germans were losing meant that they hadn't lost. So many Germans didn't think it was fair to be treated so badly when they hadn't actually lost the war. This dissatisfaction led to the creation of the so-called Dolchstosslegende ("dagger-blow legend")- this was the idea that greedy politicians had backstabbed their own country and forced Germany to surrender before the war was really over. Extremist politicians would eventually use the concept to overthrow democracy in Germany and lead to World War II.

The Treaty of Versailles (French: le Traité de Versailles) was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany andthe Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after theassassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of World War I were dealt with in separate treaties.[1] Although thearmistice signed on 11 November 1918, ended the actual fighting, it took six months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. The treaty was registered by the Secretariat of the League of Nations on 21 October 1919, and was printed in The League of Nations Treaty Series.

Of the many provisions in the treaty, one of the most important and controversial required Germany to accept responsibility for causing the war (along with Austria and Hungary, according to the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and the Treaty of Trianon, respectively) and, under the terms of articles 231-248 (later known as the War Guilt clauses), to disarm, make substantial territorial concessions and pay heavy reparations to certain countries that had formed the Entente powers. In 1921 the total cost of these reparations was assessed at 132 billion Marks (then $31.4 billion or £6.6 billion, roughly equivalent to US $442 billion or UK £284 billion in 2013), a sum that many economists at the time, notably John Maynard Keynes, deemed to be excessive and counterproductive. The argument by Keynes that the terms were too harsh-too "Carthaginian"-convinced many British and American leaders, but left the French unmoved.[2]

The countries 'created', revived or endorsed by the post-World War 1 Peace Settlement were:

1. Czechoslovakia (Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia, Ruthenia)
2. Yugoslovia (Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia)
3. The revival of Poland was endorsed.

In the Middle East:

1. Palestine (Mandate)
2. Iraq (Mandate)
3. Lebanon
4. Syria