Treaty of Versailles

What is it?

• Treaty that ended WWI

• Originated at the Paris Peace Conference 1919

Influences as a result of WWI

• Unprecedented levels of death, destruction and starvation

• War took a severe psychological toll

• Borderlines of many European nations had been redrawn

• Europe on the brink of economic collapse

• Governments fear threat of communism

Goals

• George Clemenceau (French PM)

  • Germany to pay → war reparations

  • German Army and Navy destroyed

  • Wanted Rhineland → act as a demilitarised buffer zone

• Woodrow Wilson (U.S. President)

  • 14 Point Plan for Peace

  • Pay reparations only according to capacity to pay

• David Lloyd George (British PM)

  • Smaller reparations → Germany’s dead economy = Europe’s dead economy

  • Didn’t want Germany to have Rhineland

Contents

• Military Provisions

  • Army reduced by 100,000

  • Navy reduced

  • Denied Air Force

• Economic Provisions

  • Huge reparations and amount kept increasing

  • Germany had to give up weaponry and much machinery and coal

• Territorial Provisions

  • Took away 13% of land (7 million people)

  • Rhineland forced to demilitarise as it was not passed over

• Colonial Provisions

  • Deprived of former colonies

• Covenant with League of Nations (LON)

  • Germany not allowed to join

Consequences

• Guilt Clause (Article 231)

  • Placed full responsibility on Germans

• Encouraged and fuelled rise of Nazi party