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TREATY OF VERSAILLES.   Term Paper ID:28463 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Discusses origins & effects of WWI peace treaty. Examines thesis that its terms represented vindicttiveness by Allies toward Germany. Allied war & postwar aims, compromises, war guilt clause, effects in Germany.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Discusses origins & effects of WWI peace treaty. Examines thesis that its terms represented vindicttiveness by Allies toward Germany. Allied war & postwar aims, compromises, war guilt clause, effects in Germany. Paper Introduction: TREATY OF VERSAILLES This research paper discusses the origins and effects of the Treaty of Versailles and examines the validity of the thesis that its peace terms represented uncontrolled vindictiveness by the Western Allies toward the defeated Central Powers led by Germany. The terms of peace in the Treaty reflected the strong anti-German (and anti-Austrian) antagonisms which were aroused in the Western democracies by the catastrophic and traumatic effects of the First World War as well as by the chaos, disorder and revolutions in Central Europe which followed in its wake. The principal leaders of the victorious powers at the Paris Peace Conference, Prime Minister Lloyd George of Great Britain (LG), Premier Georges Clemenceau of France and President Woodrow Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. In late October, 1918 a new Germangovernment headed by Prince Max of Baden sued for peace and on November 9,1918, the German Emperor, William II, Kaiser Wilhelm, abdicated. According to Peukert, "public opinion in all the combatant nationswas bent on inflicting a punitive peace settlement" (42). Scott, to accept that clause (Schwabe 289-29 ). After the initial thrust of the German armyacross Belgium and toward Paris slowed, the war in the West turned into aprotracted four year slugging match and bloody stalemate. LG knewbetter. A victor's terms imposed upon the vanquished [would] rest, notpermanently, but only as upon quicksand" (Clemens 165). He supported the refusal ofthe American representative on the Commission on Responsibility for theWar, J. Nonetheless, because the Germans believed that reparations debts, whether paid or not, were the cause of their economic troubles, the effect of the reparations clauses of the Versailles Treaty was fiercely embittering to the Germans (261). War Guilt, Trial of War Criminals and Reparations. The Allied statesmen were extremely short-sighted in allowing the warguilt clause to remain in the treaty. After theBolshevik revolution in Russia in November 1917, an exhausted Russiadeserted the Allied cause, making it appear for awhile that Germany mightyet prevail. Trans. Wilson compromised many of his principles inorder to obtain French agreement to a League of Nations, which Americanever joined because of opposition in the American Senate, and he and LGobtained French acquiescence to many compromises by offering a joint Anglo-American security guarantee which also lapsed for the same reason. . The war exacted a fearful toll, including more than 7 million menkilled in action, over 16 million wounded and nearly 2.3 million civiliandeaths (Chickering 195). American military deaths were 48, , but Germanylost over 2 million soldiers, France 1.4 million and Britain about 745, (195). Conclusion The peace terms contained in the Treaty of Versailles departed fromthe spirit if not the letter of Wilson's Fourteen Points. At the last minute, the German government offered to sign the rest ofthe treaty, provided it was excised. Peukert said "the war-guilt clause . London: Eyre Methuen, 1972.Kennan, George F. The French objective was"to create . New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1941.Chickering, Roger. Another month and ahalf was consumed dealing with various German objections to the treaty,most but not all of which were ignored. In November 1918 the German government proposed, and the Alliesrejected, that the issue of responsibility for the outbreak of the war beexamined by an impartial international commission of experts. The Americans, who never cared forit, acquiesced because it helped salve their conscience over the differencebetween the scope of reparations, as contemplated in the Pre-ArmisticeAgreement and the final treaty. Scott was actingunder instructions from American Secretary of State Robert Lansing who tookthe position that international law did not provide a sufficient basis totry the Kaiser or other German 'war criminals.' In the American view,legally the Germans had only agreed under the Pre-Armistice Agreement topay reparations for civilian damages not the full war costs, in which LG byMarch wanted to include the costs of veterans' pensions. It was too one-sided to bebelieved by serious students of the subject, and, more importantly, becauseit had unfortunate destabilizing effects on German politics and ultimatelyon the stability of Central Europe. Kennan said "the origins of thewar were complex in the extreme" and "you could not say that anyone haddeliberately started the war or schemed it" (58). Versailles Twenty Years After. We must notallow any sense of revenge, any spirit of greed, any grasping desire, tooverride the fundamental principles of righteousness" (Nicolson 21).However, Britain's Dominions, led by Australian Prime Minister WilliamHughes, urged LG to collect full war costs from the Central Powers.According to Birdsall, after the Khaki election LG "committed himself tothe impossible task of satisfying the electorate by promise of [recovering]full war costs" (39). The United States had stood for a 'Peace Without Victory,' in favorof a 'Peace with Justice,' which was encapsulated in Wilson's FourteenPoints speech of January 18, 1918. Dickes. The United States was least motivatedby a spirit of vindictiveness but achieved only limited success inmoderating the harshness of the peace terms due to a steady erosion of itsbargaining power after the Armistice and the unrealistic diplomacy ofWilson. It was negotiatedamidst the primal passions of post-war vengeance and retribution. . On March 29, 1919, Wilson attempted but failed to have the war guiltclause stricken from the reparations article. But it had not been routed ordestroyed" (21). According to Klingaman, "Wilsonhad come to Europe [where he was greeted by cheering throngs in December1918) to restrain the French and British desire for revenge upon thedespised Hun" (xvii-xviii). New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1965.Nowak, Friedrich. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins P, 1957.Mayer, Arno J. Wilson initially opposedreparations which went beyond compensation for damages and losses bycivilians, which placed him at cross-purposes with LG and Clemenceau. Britain, however, wasmore sensitive than was France over the dangers that too harsh a peacemight produce a weakened Germany unable to resist social revolutionarypressures and financially incapable of paying for British exports whichwere vital to Britain's recovery. It was in retreat. K. The treaty finally authorized an initialpayment of $5 billion and left the final amount to be determined by anInter-Allied Reparations Commission in 1921. Danzig was made a free city under the supervisionof the League of Nations. Peacemaking 1919. Chicago: U of Chicago P, expanded ed., 1984.Kershaw, Ian. Bailey said "the Germans did not believe, have neverbelieved, and will never believe that they and their allies were solelyresponsible for the damages caused by the war" (25 ). In part, this was due to the distortions of German war propaganda,which persuaded many Germans that they had fought to defend the Fatherlandagainst encirclement by mortal enemies and in part to the sudden anddisorienting nature of the German military collapse in 1918. The gains achieved by the Allies in thisarea were real, but nevertheless short-lived, largely due to their own lackof unity and timidity. P. The principal leaders of the victorious powersat the Paris Peace Conference, Prime Minister Lloyd George of Great Britain(LG), Premier Georges Clemenceau of France and President Woodrow Wilson ofthe United States, shared the belief of their electorates that Germany andits allies had been solely responsible for the outbreak of the war andshould be held accountable for its consequences. Passions Aroused by the War The outbreak of World War I was accompanied by great outbursts ofpatriotic fervor in all the capitals of the European warring powers, whoseleaders promised early victory. Ithad largely been bankrupted by the cost of waging a world war which forcedit to sink deeply into debt to the United States. One reasonthis occurred was the disintegration of the German army and homefront.Germany dissolved into political instability, civil chaos and left wingrevolutions in Berlin, Munich and in Hungary in early 1919 which weresuppressed by right wing elements. J. W. Versailles. However, his domestic political position andhis leverage in the Peace Conference was weakened by Republican victoriesin the election of November 1918 and growing opposition in the Senate tohis plans for a League of Nations. Woodrow Wilson, Revolutionary Germany, and Peacemaking 1918- 1919 Missionary Diplomacy and the Realities of Power. Works CitedBailey, Thomas A. Herbert Hoover said "hate and revenge ran through itspolitical and economic passages" Klingaman 3 9). New York: Devin-Adair, 1933.----------------------- 15 The Weimar Republic The Crisis of Classical Modernity. Birdsall pointedout that official 1917 German documents showed that a victorious Germanyplanned to retain Alsace-Lorraine (seized by it from France after theFranco-Prussian war of 187 ), annex the adjacent Longwy-Briey ore basin,retain political and economic control over Belgium, appropriate most ofFrance's prewar colonies, and "exact suitable indemnities from the victimsto compensate her for the tremendous financial costs" of the war (3). However, after the German western offensive of early 1918stalled, the superior weight of Allied resources, reinforced by Americanaid and manpower, proved decisive. LG embraced it because it offered him someinsulation against attacks on the treaty by his domestic right-wingopponents who favored an even harsher peace. New York: Hill and Wang, 1992.Schwabe, Klaus. The war guilt clause was a central lynch pin inthe French strategy to make Germany pay the full costs of the war, bringthe top leaders of Imperial Germany to account before an internationaltribunal, achieve the complete demilitarization of Germany, extend Frenchcontrol over German lands bordering France, the Rhineland and the Saar coalbasin, recover Alsace-Lorraine and create Poland and other independentstates on Germany's eastern and southern borders. In the end the total amount paid by Germany was less thanone third of the $33 billion, mostly financed by American bonds, many ofwhich were never repaid and helped deepen the Depression. .. Boston: Twayne, 1987.Elcock, Howard. Britain shared French fears of a revival of Prussian militarism. The terms of peace in the Treaty reflected the strong anti-German(and anti-Austrian) antagonisms which were aroused in the Westerndemocracies by the catastrophic and traumatic effects of the First WorldWar as well as by the chaos, disorder and revolutions in Central Europewhich followed in its wake. The Versailles Treaty was seen in Germany as ahumiliating diktat, which Hitler, as a rising agitator in Munich in theearly 192 s, called a "peace of shame," and "the instrument of Germany'sslavery" (Kershaw 136). Demilitarization and Territorial Arrangements. He said on November 12, 1918: "no settlement which contravenes theprinciples of eternal justice will be a permanent one . a zone of protection against the day when the Germanmenace would loom menacingly again in the east" (Nicholson 88). Taylor said "the German army had beenbeaten in the field. Keynes called its terms aCarthaginian peace. Woodrow Wilson World Statesman. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1921.Trachtenberg, Marc. Its original author and most vigorousadvocate was France. Allied Postwar Aims and Compromises in Paris Basic Facts. New York: St. The original reparations estimates of the French,$2 billion, and the British, $12 billion, went far beyond Germany'sfinancial capacity to pay which American experts estimated in 1919 did notexceed $3 billion (Bailey 245). France and European Diplomacy, 1916-1923 Reparation World Politics. According to Birdsall, "by the endof the war Woodrow Wilson's idealism had been tempered by a violent hatredof the Germans and a deep distrust of them" (2 -21). French plans to dismember Germany along its western border wereeventually scaled down through compromises engineered by LG and theAmericans which resulted in temporary French control of the Rhineland andthe Saar (for 15 years) under League of Nations supervision, whicheventually ended in the 193 s. The war in the West was fought mainly in Belgium and northernFrance, resulting in half a million civilian deaths in France alone,widespread physical destruction and economic disruption. TREATY OF VERSAILLES This research paper discusses the origins and effects of the Treatyof Versailles and examines the validity of the thesis that its peace termsrepresented uncontrolled vindictiveness by the Western Allies toward thedefeated Central Powers led by Germany. Neither were the other initial parties to the conflict,especially Russia which first mobilized in support of Serbia, and France,which urged Russia to stand firm, free of some share of the responsibilityfor the outbreak of the war. The army was limited to 1 , men. by Norman Thomas & E. American Diplomacy. Ever since historians have argued aboutresponsibility for the origins of the war. M. Portrait of a Decision: The Council of Four And the Treaty of Versailles. Effects in Germany and Longer-Range Implications On January 22, 1917, Wilson warned that "only a peace between equalscan last. Hitler 1889-1936 Hubris. More, however, than asimple desire for revenge motivated their respective approaches to theirdefeated enemies, which included sometimes conflicting postwar objectivesand, in the case of Great Britain and France, the need to compensate for,and to mask, their postwar weakness. Frenchpolicy stemmed not so much from a desire for vengeance, but rather from aprofound sense of insecurity and weakness vis-a-vis Germany. According to Mayer, in the French election of November 1918 and theBritish khaki election of December 1918 "the jingoists seized theoffensive, exploiting war-generated and anti-Hun sentiments to enlist masssupport for partisan political, economic, and foreign policy aims" (133).During the British election, Klingaman said "the nation was in a vindictivemood, applauding candidates' promises to 'hang the Kaiser' and to squeezeGermany like a lemon 'until you can hear the pips squeak'" (xi). . Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1944.Birdsall, Paul. Eventhough many of its substantive provisions were not as intrinsically unfairas they were portrayed at the time, the treaty, because of thoseprovisions, lacked international credibility from the outset. New York: Knopf, 1967.Mee, Charles L., Jr. British economist J. B. These arrangements violated Wilson's principle of self-determination and became a source of future nationalist discontent andagitation. [This] disparity . , taken together with Germany's unquestioned military genius and capacity for organization, meant that in the natural course of things Germany would overwhelm France (99). AsTrachtenberg said: forty million Frenchmen faced sixty million Germans, and the demographic gap was . . Upon readingthe clause on May 7, 1919, German Foreign Minister Count Ulrich vonBrockdorff-Rantzau said: "it is demanded of us that we shall confessourselves to be the only ones guilty of war. It was followed by supplementarytreaties between the Allied and Associated Powers and what was then left ofthe former Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Turkish Empires. Article 231 of the Treaty providedthat the Allied and Associated governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies (Bailey 246). New York: Atheneum, 1966.Tardieu, Andre. The Truth about the Treaty. Trans. Such a confession in my mouthwould be a lie" (Klingaman 3 2). According toKennan, among the populations of all the warring powers, "as hostilitiesran their course, hatreds congealed, one's own propaganda came to bebelieved, moderate people were shouted down and brought into disrepute, andwar aims hardened and became more extreme all around" (62-63). The 'war guilt'clause was inserted in the treaty as a preamble to its sections on thetrial of war criminals and reparations. He also resisted French demands to dismemberGermany, especially their seizure of the Saar coal basin and theirindefinite occupation of the Rhineland, both of which contradicted theWilsonian principle of self-determination. . The war guilt clause is perhaps the single most controversialprovision in the treaty. Richard Deveson. The Origins of the Second World War. It was relaxed somewhatin March 1919 to permit food supplies to enter Germany in return forGermany's delivery of their High Seas Fleet to the Allies. The key decisions regarding peace termsto Germany were made by the Council of Four in March-April. The Alliedvictory had been a near run thing. In another speech on February 11, 1918he stipulated that peace must be made on the basis of "no annexations, nocontributions, no punitive damages" (Clemens 2 6). The Germanright wing perpetuated the myth that Germany had not lost the war, butrather that the German army had been stabbed in the back by leftists, Jews,and other traitors at home. Trans. After initial plenary sessionsorganized 58 Commissions on specific subjects, late January and February1919 were largely taken up with the organization of the League of Nationsand the contents of its Covenant. 1919 The Year Our World Began. Many longer term factors led to the war, suchas the armaments race in Europe, Anglo-German naval rivalry, the rigidityof Austrian, German and Russian mobilization timetables and the seethingtensions in the Balkans. Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries P, 1928.Peukert, Detlev J. Even though provision for the trial of war criminals remained in thefinal treaty, the British as well as the Americans eventually lost interestin trying the Kaiser. The total costs ofthe war were estimated at more than $6 billion (Mee 26 ). These German criticisms were echoed by Westerncritics of the treaty. Imperial Germany, and the Great War, 1914-1918. Wilson,due to his rigid personality and peremptory approach to diplomacy,ultimately failed to gain much either from his Allies or his domesticopponents. To maintain maximum pressure on theGermans to accept the peace terms, the Allied blockade on Germany wasactually tightened after the Armistice causing severe food shortages. Allied war aims toward the Central Powers noticeably hardened betweenthe time of the pre-Armistice Agreement of November 11, 1918 and thedeliberations of the Paris Peace Conference (January-June 1919). The Treaty of Versailles was executed on June 28, 1919in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles by the Allied Powers, the UnitedStates (an Associated Power) and Germany. Dutton, 198 .Nicholson, Harold. According to Mee, the actual economic effect of reparations, then was economically negligible. The End of Order Versailles 1919. Germany was stripped of large German-speaking areas of Upper Silesiaand the Polish corridor. The Germans vigorously opposed it to the bitterend. The spirit of vengeance and the belief that the enemy must be made topay for all the sacrifices of the war were not limited to the westernAllies. Later Adolf Hitler rearmed Germany in the193 s in defiance of the Allies. New York: E. Robert and Rita Kumber. widening. Underthe Treaty of Brest-Litovsk of January 1918, Germany gained dominion overlarge parts of western Russia, Poland and the Baltic eastern littoral. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1985.Taylor, A. Martin's P, 1987.Link, Arthur S. Germany secretly avoided thefull impact of these provisions. . Itremained in effect until July 12, 1919 (Link 47). The central decision-making body of the Paris Peace Conference wasthe Council of Four, which was made up of LG, Clemenceau, Wilson andItalian Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando. was turned into a powerful weapon of agitation by German counter-propaganda" (11). The drafttreaty was presented to a German delegation on May 7. However, Wilsonwas undercut by John Foster Dulles, one of the American members of theReparations Commission, who indicated to the French that he was willing toaccept in principle the war guilt clause provided they and the Britishlimited their reparations demands, and by his private foreign policyadviser, Colonel Edward House, who caved in on most reparations issuesafter Wilson fell ill in early April (Birdsall 242 and Schwabe 287). Payments were finally abandoned byGermany in 1932. Summarizing (in 1998) the views of post-revisionists, Chickeringmakes several points: (1) Austria-Hungary bore a major share of theresponsibility by declaring war on Serbia in retaliation for the Serbian-inspired terrorist assassination of the Austrian Archduke FrancisFerdinand; (2) even though he later had second thoughts, the erraticKaiser's 'blank check' to the Austrians to proceed militarily againstSerbia played a key role in causing the crisis in the Balkans to escalateinto a European-wide war; (3) the German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg was willing to take "the risk of a European war;" and (4) the Chiefof the German Army's General Staff, Helmuth von Moltke, "recommendedrisking a general war, which he believed should be fought 'the sooner thebetter'" (12). Wilson The Diplomatist A Look At His Major Foreign Policies. Taylor said "no Germanaccepted the treaty as a fair settlement between equals 'without victors orvanquished'" (24). The leading French expert on the treaty, AndreTardieu, stated, "never was an international crime more flagrant thanGermany's attack on France of August 2, 1914, never was one moredeliberately planned" (14). Whether or not thetreaty was as unjust as it was perceived by many of its critics at thetime, it was definitely so perceived in Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998.Clemens, Hendrick A. The eventual amount of $33billion set in 1921 was successively scaled back because of Germany's hyper-inflation of 1922-1923 under the Dawes Plan of 1924 and the incipient GreatDepression under the Young Plan of 1929. Woodrow Wilson and the Lost Peace. Nevertheless, Wilson firmly believed that Germany was morally, if notlegally, responsible for starting the war and for the damages resultingfrom German aggression (Nowak 152-156). Wilson stronglyopposed any revision of the treaty's war guilt clause in May-June (Birdsall283 and Link 111). P. Hesought to scale down Allied reparations demands, and limit them in time (tono more than 3 years). German minorities in the Sudetenland came underCzech rule. Although the peace terms ultimately offered to Germany were severe,they were not as unjust as they seemed to many at the time; nevertheless,the manner in which they were developed and presented as well as thecontents of certain provisions, especially those dealing with war guilt,reparations and some of the territorial adjustments, helped destabilizeEurope's equilibrium by creating the impression in Germany and elsewherethat the Allies dealt unfairly with their fallen foes. . Under the treaty,Germany lost its merchant marine, almost all its navy, the largest part ofwhich was scuttled by German sailors in the Orkneys in June 1919, and itsairforce. . Politics and Diplomacy of Peacemaking Containment andCounterrevolution at Versailles, 1918-1919. New York: Norton, 1999.Klingaman, William K. 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