The Treaty of Versailles Essay

World War 1, fought from 1914 to 1918, ended with Germany on the losing side, and Britain, France, the U.S., and Russia on the winning side. Many countries were unhappy due to the fact they had lost so much money and resources from the war, and vowed never to go through the terribleness of a world war again. Little did they know around 20 years later the second world war would begin. So France, England, and the U.S. Presidents met in Versailles, France to figure out how to gain peace. France was angry they had suffered so much from the war, and proposed Germany pay big sums of gold, land, resources, and reduce their military. This was agreed upon, and became known as the Treaty of Versailles. The treaty was a factor that helped cause WW2 due to crestfallen Germany’s loss of money, land and military.

After World War I ended, Europe and its allied countries wanted to create a treaty as a form of security to prevent another situation like this ever happening again. Included in this treaty was an agreement to join the League of Nations, a group of world leaders formed to ensure international peace. While the United States wanted to agree the other terms and sign the Treaty of Versailles, there was much debate over whether it was wise to agree to help in affairs across the seas. Many Americans did not want to get involved if Europeans were fighting as it gave them more to worry about when the issue never should have concerned their country. Members of the United States government believed that that it would be a breach of American freedom and

The Treaty of Versailles formed after World War I forced Germany to pay great amounts in reparation payments, which was severely damaging to their economy and to their collective national ego. In addition, they were forced to greatly weaken their army by demobilizing, abolishing universal compulsory military service, and by having their army be comprised by no more than seven divisions of infantry and three divisions of cavalry. Furthermore, the country was also forced to return lands which they had viewed as 'Germanic' and had laid claim to, as well as overseas colonies, back to various other countries.

The Treaty of Versailles was a peace settlement signed after World War one on June 28, 1919. The main three or better known as the Big Three, that were involved with the treaty included David Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau and Woodrow Wilson. The main objective that the Treaty of Versailles advocated was that Germany should be brought to its knees so that they could never start a war again. But the worst part of the Treaty of Versailles was that it was primarily a French-planned out destruction of Germany's chances of competing in the modern world. Its motive was to limit Germany’s industrial capacity, give up its colonies that were distributed among various countries, give huge amounts of money back, and limit the size of there military, just so that the French would not have worry about Germany ever threatening them. With all that occurring Germany would never be able to rebuild themselves back to normal. Twenty years later Britain wanted it

On June 28, 1919, there was a treated that was signed by the allied powers and Germany which ended World War I called the Treaty of Versailles (Treaty of Versailles. 2009) The treaty was brought up by the four-major people who devoted to the treaty which were known as the “Big Four—David Lloyd George of Britain, Georges Clemenceau of France, Woodrow Wilson of the United States, and Vittorio Orlando of Italy” (Treaty of Versailles n/d). David Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau, and Woodrow Wilson cooperated more into shaping this treaty than the other members of the Allied Powers. The treaty had fifteen parts and 440 articles, Part I was the creation of the Covenant of the New League of Nations, Part II explained the new boundaries of Germany (Treaty of Versailles 2009) Finally Part III made a demilitarized zone and Germany was separated from Saar land for fifteen years. (Treaty of Versailles 2009) The Belgians and the French tried to carry out the treaty, which made them occupy Ruhr in 1922, however financial pressure urged France to scale down its goals and end the occupation. Under both the Dawes Plan and the Young Plan in 1924-1929 Germany finally agreed to pay for the damage they have caused, but due to the great depression the preparations were cancelled in 1932 (Treaty of Versailles. 2009). Germany violated many disarmament provisions of Part V of the treaty during the 1920s, as a matter of fact, in 1935 Hitler denounced the treaty out of respect to Austria,

The Treaty of Versailles was created at the Paris Peace Conference as “the treaty to end all wars”, and the treaty that ended World War I. However, unfortunately for Europe and the rest of the world, it only led to the Second World War. The Treaty of Versailles went horribly wrong for the European countries because it did not satisfy the European countries at all, especially Germany, the United States, France, and Britain. The United States was not happy because the U.S. Congress felt that the Treaty took away their constitutional power to declare war, and they disliked the League of Nations. Germany was not happy for a number of reasons, which includes that they were not allowed to participate in the creation of the Treaty, and most of all, the “War Guilt Clause” embarrassed Germans to extensive levels. France was not happy because the French wanted the Treaty to be more harsh on the German people, and they wanted to enforce the treaty even harsher. The British also were not happy because they were not in agreement with the French that the Treaty should be harsh on the Germans. Because so many powerful countries in Europe were dissatisfied with the Treaty of Versailles, they all tried in their own ways to fix it in their countries, which led to the Second World War.

The treaty of Versailles, written in Paris Peace Conference by four allied nations, contributed to the culmination of World War I between Germany and those four nations, which were United States, France, Great Britain and Italy. Even though the purpose of the treaty was to prevent further conflict and war, it, in fact, failed to treat all nations justifiably, including the losers of the war (Germany), because it mandated Germany to solely compensate for the loss and damages caused by the war. The restrictions treated Germany like a colony and eventually led to the decrease of German military forces, financial bankruptcy caused by excessive reparation and the rise of Nazis which triggered World War II.

Imagine this: a child starts a fight on the playground in elementary school. After a nasty scuffle he is caught and brought into the principal’s office for punishment. Present in the office is the mother of a child whose arm was broken in the fight. She wants the child punished severely as restitution for hurting her son. Next is one of the children who stepped in to defend the victim. He wants the child punished, but not as harshly as the mother. And, of course, the principal. He stepped in at the end of the fight and broke it up. His only goal at this point is to make sure another fight does not occur. Welcome to the situation at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 at the close of World War I. Germany had started a major war, and it was

The unification of Germany threw all of Europe off its axis. With the formation of this new power there were now five major powers instead of four. This would work to unsettle age-old alliances and confuse the entire European continent for more than twenty years. Not least among the nations swept of their proverbial feet was France. France was a rival with the German alliance long before it merged into one state, but the new stability of a unified Germany made it a much more powerful entity. France scrambled to try and establish a sense of security, immediately demanding compensation in the form of

After the war Germany was not a very popular country across the world to say the least, because of this some countries may want to seek revenge. It is unfair to the innocent people of Germany to have such a small form of protection against possible invasions. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson met with English Prime Minister David Lloyd-George and French Premier Georges Clemenceau at the Versailles Peace Conference that determined the shape of postwar Europe. Almost 10% of the German

The league of nations was created by the winners of WWI and was intended to prevent future world wars. The idea was created by the US president Woodrow Wilson. The League of Nations was supposed to be a council that included all the world nations to discuss topics and keep peace. This organization failed in stopping WWII. The League had multiple opportunities to stop the second world war, but failed miserably. The League of Nations had very limited authority on countries such as Japan, Italy, Germany and the USSR. “The main weapon of the League was to ask member countries to stop trading with aggressive countries”(Wheeler). The League of Nations was treated as a joke and could not enforce any of the rules that they set. The League had no authority because they had no army to threaten the aggressive countries. Additionally, countries such as Italy and Germany were not part of the League and therefore had no obligation to listen to them or make peace talks. If the League was set up in a better format and way to work it would not have failed and they could have been able to stop the second world

The Versailles treaty was the peace settlement between Germany and the Allied powers that eventually ended world war one. Even Though it ended this war the treaty of Versailles was hated by many American and Germany. Germany made many threats to the Allied powers. The passing of the Treaty of Versailles resulted in unpopular backlash from both Germany and America.

Both genocide and propaganda were also used during The Holocaust that killed 6 million people and it was all started by one treaty, which was the Treaty of Versailles. The Treaty of Versailles and the economic depression in germany was used to justify the Nazis changing the laws, in hopes of fixing their government, then spread propaganda to instill fear of the Jewish population, which led the German citizens feel anger then hate and later to genocide and the final solution. But before we get into that let’s ask two question “What was the Treaty of Versailles?” and “How did the Treaty lead to the economic depression in Germany?”. The Treaty of Versailles came after the end of WWI and was meant to prevent another major world war and according to history it didn’t.

World War I was ultimately ended in 1918 after the Treaty of Versailles was signed. Peace settlements were signed on June 28, 1918 at the Hall of Mirror in Versailles, Paris. The Treaty was an agreement among the United States, Great Britain, and France. Woodrow Wilson, George Clemenceau, and David Lloyd, who represented the "Big Three" countries, collaborated in negotiating the Treaty. The Treaty of Versailles was designed to weaken Germany and give Germany full blame for causing the war. The Treaty implemented massive reparations to Germany which would obliterate Germany's economy, notwithstanding the millions of dead allied soldiers. The settlement strictly limited the German's military. Germans were

At the end of the war, the Germans were forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles 5 years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. When the Germans found out that they had to sign this treaty, they were outraged, especially due to the fact that they have to pay for all the damage that the war cost them.