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Essay on The Treaty of Versailles vis-à-vis World War 2
This treaty was made between the Allies and Germany, and it began to restore order. According to this treaty, all of Germany’s colonies were divided among the nations, thought it sustained minor losses of territory within Europe. Its standing army was reduced to 100,00 men, and they could not have forts in the Rhineland. The clause of the Treaty that angered most people was the one that made Germany claim responsibility for the war, and imposed reparations. Though Germany’s new republican government found the treaty to be harsh, they signed it and their discontent set the stage for the Second World War.
The Versailles Treaty did little to shape any sort of long-term peace from the results of World War I. Instead, the treaty, quickly put together, was vague, exposed the Allies’ incapability to cooperate toward an agreement, and stimulated German nationalism from bitterness over her treatment by the Allies in the treaty. Hobsbawm argues that the Versailles settlement could not possibly be the foundation of a stable peace. It was disaster-prone from the start, and another war was almost certain (Hobsbawm, 1996). The principle reasons for the failure of the Treaty of Versailles to establish a long-term peace include the following:
- The Allies differed on how best to treat Germany;
- Germany refused to accept the terms of reparations; and
- Germany’s refusal to accept the “war-guilt” clause, Article 231, led to growing German resentment and nationalism.
The Versailles Peace Conference exposed the ideological division increasing between the Allies. All the way through Versailles and After, Henig argues that Britain and France had “contradictory viewpoints” (Henig, 1995), concerning the treatment of Germany. Although public opinions of both nations were strongly in support of seeing Germany pay to the fullest extent, only France saw Germany as a potential threat to the future security of European stability......
