Impact of Versailles

S4

Victory and Defeat

• Wilson & Lloyd George urged moderation – stop desire for revenge

• Tide swung against them in favour of Clemenceau

Wilson’s decline

• Change in leadership happened for three main reasons

1. Attempted assassination of Clemenceau gained the old ‘Tiger’ sympathy

2. Wilson’s view of American involvement not shared by fellow countrymen – party lost control, American Congress eventually refused to sign treaty thus isolating America from Europe and from new League of Nations

3. Public opinion would not accept new peace which was not seen to curb German power

Review of Terms

• Presented on May 7th 1919• Headline in Daily Record 8th May

1919 declared

Peace Treaty for Germany stern but just

Shock!

• Inside Germany myth already developing that Germay had not been defeated in the field so should have been treated as equals

• After all Allies did not invade Germany but instead accepted the surrender

• Terms clearly indicated Germany was a defeated nation

• Contained over two hundred clauses with clear sections: BRAT

War Guilt

• Article 231 – full responsibility• German denial but in no shape to

reopen hostilities• Ordered to sign

Reparations

• Compensation to help meet costs of repairing damage caused by war

• Figure set at £6.6 billion• Germany complained bitterly – crippling amount

especially as were in desperate economic situation following war

• Germany had forced France to pay after Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871

• Took away ability to to earn money to pay off debt• E.g. France was to have Saar coalfields for 15 years,

Poland was given the Silesian coalfields and Germany stripped off the few overseas possessions it had

Armed forces/Military• Belief in Arms race/German militarism being main

cause of war• Determination to destroy German military power• Army not to exceed 100,000• No Navy beyond handful of surface vessels• No U-boats, no airforce• German fleet to be handed over to British at Scapa

Flow in 1919• Once last act of defiance – Germany sunk whole fleet• Border between France and Germany – the Rhineland

– to be occupied by Allied forces for 15 years.• Germany not allowed to station any troop there• DEFENCELESS

Territorial Adjustments• Alsace and Lorraine, taken from France in 1871,

returned to France immediately• Parts of Germany given to Belgium and Denmark• To east of Germany, a new country was formed –

Poland• Former German city of Danzig to be free city

under control of League of Nations but with access to Poland

• Had effect of dividing Germany in two – East Prussia separated from rest of Germany by a corridor of land: Polish corridor

• Lost coalfields of Silesia to Poland• Majority of overseas possessions to France and

Britain

Impact

• Whole German nation blamed for outbreak of war in 1914

• German public outraged at humiliation of Versailles

• Deutsche Zeitung 28th June 1919 printed leading story

Vengeance! German Nation!Today in the Hall of Mirrors a disgraceful treaty is being

signed. Never forget it!...The German people, with unceasing labour, will push forward to reconquer its place

among the nations of the world…..There will be a vengeance for the shame of 1919.

Think!

How old would a child born in 1919 be in 1940?

What is the cartoonist suggesting about the Treaty of Versailles?