Were the Peace Treaties justified at the time?
On the 11th of November 1918 at 11am the Armistice was signed, meaning the end of the First World War. All the countries involved were left in ruin, both physically and economy. Over 20 million people had lost their lives and thousands had been forced out of their homes. The countries that had been the base of all the trenches like Northern France and Belgium were left with whole towns completely destroyed. The population left in the ‘victorious’ countries (mainly France, Britain and the USA) wanting to see justice served to the countries that they believed had caused this hideous war, but overall everyone just wanted to make sure a war like that, never ever happened again.
To make sure that another War as brutal as World War One could never happen again, the ‘victorious’ countries decided to punish the ‘losing’ countries with a series of treaties. The treaties were; the Treaty of St. Germain for Austria, the Treaty of Trianon for Hungary, the Treaty of Neuilly for Bulgaria, the Treaty of Sevres (later changing to the Treaty of Lausanne) for Turkey and the most severe out of all the treaties, the Treaty of Versailles which was created for Germany.
The men given the main task of creating these treaties were nick-named, The Big Three. They were: David Lloyd-George (the British Prime Minister), Woodrow Wilson (President of the USA) and Georges Clemenceau (the French Prime Minister), they would also sometimes be joined by an Italian representative. The conference held to decide what would be included in these treaties was called the Paris Peace Conference. The conference was held in the palace of Versailles, just outside of Paris. It opened on January the 12th, 1919, with representatives from more than 30 countries. The conference lasted for over a year.
The 4 smaller Treaties, given to Germany’s allies (the Treaty of St. Germain, Trianon, Neuilly, and Sevres to Lausanne) were much less intense than the Treaty of Versailles. The other 4 treaties included that all the countries lose land and territories. Austria’s army was reduced to 30,000 men and Bulgaria’s army was reduced to 20,000 men. Each country also had to pay back reparations; Bulgaria had to pay the most back with £100million in reparations. These treaties were less severe because the Big 3 didn’t have as many reasons to punish Germany’s allies, as they did Germany. They didn’t believe that the allies started the war, just fought on the ‘losing’ side.
The main things that influenced the Big Three when making the Treaty of Versailles were: fear, the hatred of Germany, the geographical location of each country and the huge loses that they had all suffered. Clemenceau the French Prime Minister was defiantly the most brutal out of the men. France boarders with Germany, so if the Germans decided to invade, France would be targeted yet again. Clemenceau was scared that if Germany was to invade again, France wouldn’t be strong enough to fight back, so he wanted to make sure they took as much from Germany as they could, to make them weak. Lloyd George also wanted to punish Germany, but not as brutally as Clemenceau, because Britain has the Channel for protection against being invaded, it is an island so they only way to attract would be by boat, which wouldn’t really work, or by air, which wasn’t being used at the time but Britain had spent over 9 billion pounds on the war, and had lost thousands of soldiers, so Lloyd George wanted the Treaty to weaken Germany as well but to also make them pay. In January of 1918, just before the war ended, Wilson had drawn up a 14 point plan of how he thought they could achieve peace, so he wanted the Treaty of Versailles to reflect the idea of his 14 points, but Wilson did not lose as much in the war as the other two countries, as they joined later on in 1917 and also the USA is the furthest away from Germany, so it was impossible for them to be invaded or physically attacked by them, so Wilson was up against the two other men who both were a lot more afraid, and wanted a lot more revenge than he did.
The final terms of the Treaty of Versailles reflect the all of the 3 men’s views of what they wanted to achieve with the Treaty and the feelings of their countries. There was main 5 points to the Treaty, these were: the War Guilt Clause, Reparations, the German territories and colonies, the Armed Forces and the League of Nations.
The War Guilt clause was a document drawn up which Germany was made to sign as part of the Treaty. The document said: ‘the Allied governments affirm, and German accepts, the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied government and their peoples have been subjected as a result of the war’. The War Guilt clause was Germany accepting full responsibility for causing all of World War One and all the losses and damage that came with the War even though it wasn’t actually Germany that first started the war; it was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The German people were very annoyed about the War Guilt Clause because the Germans felt that they had not actually ‘lost’ the war, because they had agreed to a ceasefire before they actually got defeated, so they hadn’t technically lost. They were also annoyed that the blame did not get shared, but only directed towards Germany.
In the Treaty, it stated that Germany had to pay back £6.6 billion in reparations. The country would be crippled, that huge amount of reparations would leave the economy shattered. If Germany was to pay back this much in reparations, it would have to come out of the tax payers money, the taxes that should of been used on food and building basic shelters for all of the German citizens that were homeless or starving after the War. It would have taken Germany till 1984 to totally pay off the reparations. The German people were very angry at this sum of money, because it would be them that were mainly paying it off, they also thought that they had also suffered massive losses as a result of the war aswell, Germany lost 2,000,000 soldiers (more than any other country) in the war, that is 2,000,000 workers and tax payers that could not help pay off the reparations.
Another term of the Treaty was that Germany was only allowed 100,000 men in the army (and the soldiers had to volunteer), the German navy was only allowed 6 battle ships and they were not allowed armoured vehicles, submarines and aircrafts. For the size of Germany, 100,000 soldiers in their army was not a lot, it was certainly not enough to ever to go war again. It was also very shameful to Germany to have such a small army, because an army was a symbol of power.
Germany’s overseas empire was also taken away. It had been one of the causes of bad relations between Britain and Germany before World War One. German colonies were distributed to France, Britain and some British Dominions as League of Nations mandates. In Africa, France and Britain divided the Cameroons between them, Belgium gained small parts of north-western German East Africa, Togoland was divided between France and Britain; German South West Africa was annexed to the Union of South Africa but the United Kingdom got the far greater landmass. Germany lost out greatly by having to give up these colonies. Africa was known for having diamonds and gold in the ground for mining; it made countries a lot of money. Germany could no longer get money from the diamonds and gold, making it even harder for them to get enough money to pay back the reparations.
As a result of the Treaty, Germany also lost 13% of its land which meant they lost 10% of its inhabitants. They lost the Saar land, which was to be run by the League of Nations, and also Danzig which was made a free city to be run by the League, it was also later given to Poland as a sea port, and Poland also got more from Germany’s East border. Belgium also received Eupan and Malmedy, Denmark was given North Schleswig. France regained Alsace-Lorraine which was lost to Germany in 1871; this was also point 8 of Wilson’s 14 Points. The Rhineland was also made into a Demilitarised zone, which meant that Germany couldn’t place any armed forces or Military vehicles/weapons in that area. Losing that amount of land would meant that Germany would lose millions of people, people that would earn money for the country by working and paying taxes, meaning that Germany would again lose out on money that could have been used for re-paying the £6.6billion in reparations. Also by losing that land it meant that they lost a lot of iron ores and zinc ores, which were both extremely useful for producing things. They also lost coalmines, 14.6% of the wheat supplies (needed to make basic food like bread to feed the country) and they lost 15% of their cattle.
The last point in the Treaty of Versailles was that Germany was not allowed to join the League of Nations, which was set up in January of 1920 as a way of stopping the outbreak of war ever happening again. It was point 14 in Wilson’s 14 points.
There was a massive difference of opinions on what people thought of the Treaty of Versailles and what was included in it. The French thought it wasn’t severe enough. They had been represented by Clemenceau, the French Prime Minister, at the Paris Peace Conference. Clemenceau was known for being the harsher one out of the Big 3. His country (France) was located bordering with Germany. This meant that France was an easy target for invasion, like what happened with World War One and the other fifteen invasions in the last 6 centuries that France had faced. Clemenceau was scared of Germany, it was well known that Germany was one of the most, if not the most, powerful country in Europe at the time, he wanted to take that power away from them and make them as weak as he could. The thing Clemenceau wanted the most was Alsace-Lorraine. It would give France the protection that they would need to stop Germany from attacking again.
France did not want another war like the First World War, they lost massive amounts in the war, for example; 300,000 houses, 5600km of railway line, 90% of the coal and iron industry was destroyed and 23,000 factories were also ruined. The French people had seen as this destruction happening as the hands of Germany, now that the war was finally over, they needed to see what they believed was a just punishment for Germany. The French wanted Germany to fully disarm, they would defiantly not disarm themselves, but they expected Germany to straight away. The French were happy with the amount of armed forces that were taken away in the Treaty but would have been happier with all of the armed forces taken away from Germany.
The French people were also happy with the amount of reparations that Germany was made it pay. £6.6 billion would have been enough to start work fixing all the damage that was caused as a result of the war. It was also a big relief for the French people that Germany signed the War Guilt Clause, because it gave them some kind of closer on the war, and they now could start to rebuild all that was lost. Overall the French were rather pleased with the Treaty of Versailles; it could have been a lot more severe in their opinion but that would have been unrealistic and would have caused another outbreak of war straight away.
The British opinion on the Treaty of Versailles was rather the same as the French, but less severe. They had been represented by Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister at the Paris Peace Conference. Lloyd George was a lot less worried about the German’s invading Britain, because it was nearly impossible for them to do that. They would need to cross the Channel in order to reach British land, and which Britain being an island it means that the only way they could do that was by using boats, which would be easy to defend against. Britain had lost 750,000 soldiers in the War, and had spent a massive 9 billion pounds (some of which was borrowed money), so the British people were also keen to see Germany punished for causing this War.
A difference from the French opinion is that, many British people actually began to question the terms of the Treaty. Many people began to realise that this Treaty was going to cause another war. They believed that the terms were too harsh on Germany, they didn’t want another war, so began to speak up about how silly they thought this treaty was, for example: Sir Phillip Gibbs, a British Journalist said that the flaws in the Treaty was obvious to even ‘the most ignorant school boy’. Even with people such as Phillip Gibbs questioning the terms, most of the British population were happy that they were beginning to see some justice for this horrific war, in which they lost many of their loved ones.
The American’s had a totally different view to France and Britain. They wanted the Treaty of Versailles to be based on Wilsons 14 Points. Woodrow Wilson had fought at the Paris Peace Conference to get his point into the terms of the Treaty, but Clemenceau and Lloyd George disagreed on many of them, such as; free seas, disarmament for all and colonies to have a say in their own futures. They disagreed with free seas because, if there was to be free seas, it would mean Germany could bring their battle ships into waters around France and Britain and they couldn’t attack them back fairly, also they would lose a lot of money from the fishing trade. There was no way that Britain and France were prepared to disarm, not after the battle they had faced in World War One, there was still a lot of tension in the air, and if the colonies were to become independent then they would lose all the money that they were making from the diamond trade. There were some points in Wilson’s 14 Points that they did all agree on. Like Point 8, ‘France to regain Alsace-Lorraine’ so it was included in the Treaty, Point 13 ‘Poland to become an independent state with access to the sea’ so that was also included in the Treaty, and the main point, Point 14, was the League of Nations to be set up. Although the USA never actually joined the League of Nations, it was a point that all of the Big 3 were in agreement with, because it meant they could protect each other and work together, but they were not ready to let Germany join, until they proved to be a peace loving country.
If the Treaty had followed all of these 14 Points properly, then Germany would have been a lot more open to signing the Treaty of Versailles, this leads us on to the German opinion on the Treaty. When the Treaty was realised, there was uproar around Germany. They had been lead to believe that the treaty would be based on the 14 Points, but from what they could tell, it was not. They thought the Treaty was very unfair and far too harsh.
President Ebert and his government were never forgiven by the German people for signing the Treaty of Versailles because it was the German people that would get affected the most. By signing the Treaty, Germany agreed to pay off a massive £6.6 billion, this was money that would have to come out of the tax payer’s money, and the taxes may even have to increase. The German people thought this amount of reparations was very unfair because they had also lost money in the war, and needed money to start to rebuild their country as well. They also didn’t think it was fair to pay off the reparations because they believed that they didn’t start the war, and the War Guilt Clause was wrong to blame only them.
The German people also hated that so much land was taken from them. They lost 10% of their population, which meant less people to help pay off the reparations with taxes, and also less people to work and produce items to be sold and used in Germany. They believed that it was unfair to have all of that land taken. They also believed it was unfair to have to give up their colonies, because France and Britain didn’t have to give up theirs, but instead gained land. They thought that everyone should have to give up the colonies like Wilson said on Point 5 in his 14 Points.
They also hated that they were the only country that was made to disarm when Wilson stated on Point 4 that all countries were to work towards disarmament, not just Germany. It was a big disgrace to have such a small army, as an army was a symbol of power, so the German people were very embarrassed by having to give up so much. Germany also didn’t understand why they had not been allowed to join the League of Nations, it was set up to stop the outbreak of war, but not every country was allowed to join. There was no-way Germany could start working with other countries and start rebuilding itself without being allowed to join the League; it didn’t make sense to many German people.
Overall the German people hated the Treaty of Versailles, they thought it was extremely unfair to them and they didn’t want to sign it. They believed that all the terms were not justified and were far too harsh on them. It was this uproar from the German people that Hitler decided to use to his advantage, causing him to be voted into power and causing World War 2 as a result.
Personally I think that the Treaty of Versailles was both fair and unfair. If I was a French or British citizen living at the time then I too would want to punish Germany to make them pay for causing such a war. I would also want to make sure a war like that could never happen again, I also imagine that the feeling around Britain and France would be that World War One couldn’t truly end without some sort of closer, that would be the Treaty. Looking back on the terms of the Treaty now, I do understand why the German’s thought it to be extremely unfair, and how it ended up causing another outbreak of war. The German citizens saw it as nothing more than an attack on them, something that would destroy the country forever and make life even harder for those living in Germany at the time.
In conclusion I think the Big 3 would not of put anything different in the Treaty if they could change it now, because at the time in was what everyone in their countries was pushing for. Anything that the Big 3 produced, someone would be unhappy with, whether it is Germany thinking it was too harsh or French and Britain thinking it wasn’t harsh enough. I think that some of the terms were severe, like the amount that they were told to pay off in reparations, which would be impossible for them to pay with the country the way it was at the time but I think that some of the terms were very clever, like the disarmament, because it meant the French felt a lot safer bordering Germany. Whatever happen with the Treaty, the outbreak of another war was inevitable because of feelings at the time.
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