What was versailles treaty

Reparations and harsh peace settlements were not unusual. For example, when Russia surrendered to Germany in , Germany issued extraordinarily harsh peace terms under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk these terms were invalidated by the Paris peace settlements. Equally controversial, perhaps, were the territorial adjustments dictated by the Versailles Treaty as well as other postwar treaties. These adjustments led to resettlement of populations, and in central and eastern Europe, new nations were carved out of old empires.

New nations were created, but they were unstable and vulnerable, given that they had little support or funding from more established nations. No one in Germany was happy with the settlement, and the Allies threatened Germans with military invasion to get them to sign the treaty. After four years of war and sacrifice, German citizens felt humiliated to accept blame for the war and territorial loss. Slow economic growth and popular dissatisfaction were difficult to manage, especially for the new Weimar Republic, and political leaders struggled to manage the growing volume of complaints.

When the government defaulted on payments in , France and Belgium lost patience and occupied the Ruhr mining region. In response, the German government printed more currency to pay the French, sending German citizens into hyperinflation, which wiped out the savings of the middle class.

By the mids, the German economy recovered, and the United States helped Germany renegotiate reparations payments with the Dawes Plan.

The treaty had been drafted during a peace conference held in Paris starting on 18 January; but Germany had been shut out of the deal-making, while the Allies debated the matter alone, unable to agree amongst themselves: France wanted to definitively remove the German threat and cripple the country, Great Britain wanted to preserve its status, the USA dreamed of a peaceful world with the establishment of the League of Nations , and Italy wanted to take over the territories it had been promised in The treaty was eventually presented to Germany on 7 May.

It was very harsh. The counter-proposals submitted on the 29th were all rejected. Germany refused to sign. On 17 June the Allies gave Germany five days to decide or have the war resume. It cannot be denied that the conditions were somewhat draconian. In addition, it lost most of its ore and agricultural production.

World War One had left Europe devastated. Those countries that had fought in it, had suffered casualties never experienced before:.

Britain : , soldiers killed; 1,, wounded France : 1,, soldiers killed; 2,, wounded Belgium : 50, soldiers killed Italy : , soldiers killed Russia : 1,, soldiers killed America : , soldiers killed. Germany : 2,, soldiers killed Austria-Hungary : 1,, soldiers killed Turkey : , soldiers killed Bulgaria : , soldiers killed. The total deaths of all nations who fought in the war is thought to have been 8. Alongside these statistics, was the fact that vast areas of north-eastern Europe had been reduced to rubble.

Flanders in Belgium had been all but destroyed with the ancient city of Ypres being devastated. The homes of , French people were destroyed and the infrastructure of this region had also been severely damaged. The victors from World War One were in no mood to be charitable to the defeated nations and Germany, in particular, was held responsible for the war and its consequences.

During mid, Europe was hit by Spanish flu and an estimated 25 million people died. This added to the feeling of bitterness that ran through Europe and this anger was primarily directed at Germany.

His public image was simple. He was a politician and politicians needed the support of the public to succeed in elections. If he had come across as being soft on Germany, he would have been speedily voted out of office. However, in private Lloyd George was also very concerned with the rise of communism in Russia and he feared that it might spread to western Europe. After the war had finished, Lloyd George believed that the spread of communism posed a far greater threat to the world than a defeated Germany.

Privately, he felt that Germany should be treated in such a way that left her as a barrier to resist the expected spread of communism. He did not want the people of Germany to become so disillusioned with their government that they turned to communism. Lloyd George did not want Germany treated with lenience but he knew that Germany would be the only country in central Europe that could stop the spread of communism if it burst over the frontiers of Russia. Germany had to be punished but not to the extent that it left her destitute.

However, it would have been political suicide to have gone public with these views. Georges Clemenceau of France had one very simple belief — Germany should be brought to its knees so that she could never start a war again. This reflected the views of the French public but it was also what Clemenceau himself believed in. He had seen the north-east corner of France destroyed and he determined that Germany should never be allowed to do this again.

Woodrow Wilson of America had been genuinely stunned by the savagery of the Great War. He could not understand how an advanced civilisation could have reduced itself so that it had created so much devastation. In America , there was a growing desire for the government to adopt a policy of isolation and leave Europe to its own devices. In failing health, Wilson wanted America to concentrate on itself and, despite developing the idea of a League of Nations , he wanted an American input into Europe to be kept to a minimum.

It included the planned formation of the League of Nations , which would serve both as an international forum and an international collective security arrangement.

President Woodrow Wilson was a strong advocate of the League as he believed it would prevent future wars. Negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference were complicated. While it fought alongside the Allies, the United States was not bound to honor pre-existing agreements among the Allied Powers.

These agreements focused on postwar redistribution of territories. President Woodrow Wilson strongly opposed many of these arrangements, including Italian demands on the Adriatic. Treaty negotiations were also weakened by the absence of other important nations.