Versailles Effect On Germany

The Treaty of Versailles: Prelude to WWII
The Treaty of Versailles was not a justified treaty, which created German feelings of revenge and dislike towards the victorious countries. This feeling of revenge felt by Germany, in addition with the social atmosphere of Europe, led to a Second World War in the September of 1939, just 11 years after the first World War. People at the time published reports on the unfairness of the treaty. America never ratified the treaty but Britain and France still enforced it. Germany had no choice but to sign the unfair document and it was only a matter of time before things turned for the worse. We must examine the background, clauses, and effects of the Treaty of Versailles on Germany and Europe to understand how it helped cause WWII. Then, when you look at the situation the treaty created for Europe, we can see how WWII came about.

The war had left Europe in shambles. WWI ended on November 11, 1918, leaving millions of European soldiers dead and injured. Large areas of Belgium and France had been devastated and two of Europe’s most powerful countries, Germany and Austria-Hungary, were defeated and exhausted. All the European countries were now bankrupt from the cost of waging a war for four years. Germany had not been defeated, but knew that if it continued to fight war against the strong American army, defeat in Berlin would result. Because Germany had surrendered, her only option was to either sign the treaty, or else go back to war again, which would inevitably result in defeat. The Treaty was unexpectedly harsh, though, despite the fact Germany hadn’t been defeated, she had merely surrendered.
Germany was forced to agree that it was guilty of starting the war. This clause was the most insulting and damaging clause for it blatantly and wrongly accused Germany of being the sole cause of war, and this enabled the other clauses to be severe as she was now to pay for the whole of WWI. The second clause was that Germany had to disarm.

The effects of this clause were: the army was to be limited to 100,000 men; conscription and much prided submarines and aircraft (the allies thought that without an air force Germany couldn’t ever go to war) were to be banned; the navy was limited to six battleships (no Dreadnought’s); and the Rhineland was to become a demilitarized- zone. This was emotional for the Germans since they had had such a strong army and were forced to sink their prided Dreadnoughts. This emotional loss created resentment towards the allies and was the first clause for Hitler to undo. The reparation clause was an unjust clause, for the amount was excessively much, as said by many people at the time.

Germany had to pay severe reparations, imposed to help the damaged countries rebuild after the war, at the amount of $5 billion due May 1, 1921.9 The leading British economist, John Maynard Keynes, published a book, before the increase in reparations to $32.5 billion by 1963, warning that the treaties would prevent the European economy recovering from the war damage. Germany had hardly enough money to pay the original amount, and, inevitably, great inflation occurred, destroying the economy and causing unemployment and starvation. Furthermore, another clause of the treaty was that the territory of Germany had to be greatly reduced. Britain and France had been malicious and were shortsighted by demanding Germany’s money while taking away the territory that could provide the money.

In this clause Germany lost 13% of its territory, containing 7.3 million people, and all of her overseas colonies, ending her empire. Germany had lost her main coal producing territories of Upper Silesia and the Saarland. In 1913, 139 million tons of coal were used in Germany for railroads, utilities, fuel, and agriculture; the Saarland and Upper Silesia had accounted for 60.8 million tons of this. With more than half of Germany’s coal taken away, they didn’t have enough coal to power the populated industrial country. With industry destroyed there was no way they could pay the reparations. Germany had made proposals dealing with the territorial decisions and reparations; they were willing to give up Alsace-Lorraine