October 11, 2024
The Lessons of the Versailles Treaty
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
The failure of Versailles remains a tragic lesson about the eternal rules of war and human nature itself — 100 years ago this summer.
The failure of Versailles remains a tragic lesson about the eternal rules of war and human nature itself — 100 years ago this summer.

The Treaty of Versailles was signed in Versailles, France, on June 28, 1919. Neither the winners nor the losers of World War I were happy with the formal conclusion to the bloodbath.

The traditional criticism of the treaty is that the victorious French and British democracies did not listen to the pleas of leniency from progressive American president Woodrow Wilson. Instead, they added insult to the German injury by blaming Germany for starting the war. The final treaty demanded German reparations for war losses. It also forced Germany to cede territory to its victorious neighbors.

The harsh terms of the treaty purportedly embittered and impoverished the Germans. The indignation over Versailles supposedly explained why Germany eventually voted into power the firebrand Nazi Adolf Hitler, sowing the seeds of the World War II.

But a century later, how true is the traditional explanation of the Versailles Treaty?

In comparison to other treaties of the times, the Versailles accord was actually mild — especially by past German standards.

After the 1870–1871 Franco–Prussian war, a newly unified and victorious Germany occupied France, forced the French to pay reparations and annexed the rich Alsace–Lorraine borderlands.

Berlin’s harsh 1914 plans for Western Europe at the onset of World War I — the so-called Septemberprogramm — called for the annexation of the northern French coast. The Germans planned to absorb all of Belgium and demand payment of billions of marks to pay off the entire German war debt.

In 1918, just months before the end of the war, Germany imposed on a defeated Russia a draconian settlement. The Germans seized 50 times more Russian territory and ten times greater the population than it would later lose at Versailles.

[…]

Loading

Visited 63 times, 1 visit(s) today