World War II: Causes and Versailles Peace (1919–1939) – Detailed Study Notes

Versailles Conference and the Big Three

• End of World War I: Armistice signed on $11\ \text{November}\ 1918$, leading to the Versailles Peace Conference opening in January $1919$ and the German delegation signing the Treaty on $28\ \text{June}\ 1919$.
• The ‘Big Three’ negotiators at Versailles:
  • Georges Clemenceau (France): sought revenge and punishment to make Germany too weak to threaten France again.
  • Woodrow Wilson (USA): pursued his Fourteen Points, aiming for a world safe for democracy, self-determination, and a League of Nations.
  • David Lloyd George (Britain): claimed to want Germany to pay, but his real aim was to protect British Empire and trade through a lasting peace that wouldn’t ruin Germany.
• Key idea: The treaty was a negotiated settlement shaped by competing aims, not a simple implementation of Wilson’s points.

The Versailles Treaty: Main terms

• War guilt clause:

  • Clause $231$: Germany had to accept blame for all loss and damage of the war.

• Military restrictions for Germany:

  • No submarines or aircraft; only $6$ battleships; army limited to $100{,}000$; the Rhineland demilitarised.

• Reparations:

  • Germany had to pay $6{,}600{,}000{,}000\ ext{pounds}$.

• Territorial changes:

  • Alsace-Lorraine returned to France.
  • Saar coalfield administered by France for $15$ years.
  • West Prussia and Upper Silesia assigned to Poland.
  • Danzig became a separate free city.
  • German colonies became mandates of the League of Nations.

• Creation of the League of Nations.

• Prohibition of Anschluss (unification) with Austria.

• Broader European implications: The Versailles principles were later applied to other postwar treaties (Saint Germain with Austria $1919$, Neuilly with Bulgaria $1919$, Trianon with Hungary $1920$, Sevres with Turkey $1920$).

• New nation-states: Nine new states were created (Poland, Finland, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania).

• Sevres dismantled the Turkish Empire.

• Reactions to the treaty:

  • Germans were furious, felt excluded from the negotiations, and believed the treaty contradicted Wilson’s Fourteen Points (e.g., self-determination for Austria).
  • Kapp Putsch (March $1920$) signaled German discontent and civil unrest.
  • The leading Allies had mixed views: Clemenceau liked disarmament and some losses but wanted Germany split; Wilson secured the League but not disarmament or colonies; Lloyd George thought the treaty was too harsh and risked future war in about $25$ years.

• Why the treaty mattered:

  • Historians argue it helped set the stage for World War II by fostering German resentment and undermining Allied willingness to enforce the terms, thereby enabling Hitler’s later violations.

• Reparations and enforcement dynamics:

  • Ruhr crises to enforce reparations: German occupation by Allied troops in March $1921$ and January $1923$ led to economic disruption and hyperinflation.
  • Dawes Plan (April $1924$): restructured payments and provided loans to restart the German economy.
  • Young Plan (June $1929$): further reduced reparations.

• Germany’s path into the League:

  • Germany admitted to the League on $8\ \text{September}\ 1926$.

• The Covenant and the League’s aims and methods:

  • The Covenant formed from the first $26$ points of the Versailles settlement, establishing aims: to stop war, uphold Versailles, promote disarmament, and advance health and welfare via League agencies.
  • Methods included the Community of Power (collective action), arbitration, and sanctions (trade restrictions).
  • The League could raise an army, but funding was difficult; thus it largely relied on moral force.

• Structure of the League:

  • The Assembly met once a year and voted unanimously.
  • The Council, meeting $4-5$ times a year, had five permanent members with veto rights: Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and later Germany (from $1936$).
  • Agencies included: Court of International Justice; Health Committee (later WHO); International Labour Organisation; Refugees Committee; Slavery Commission; Mandates Commission.

Early successes of the League (1920s)

• Membership and authority:
  • Started with $42$ member states; by the 1930s about $60$.
  • Britain and France, with help from Japan and Italy, were major powers.
• Notable successes:
  • Aaland Islands arbitration (1921): decision awarded the islands to Finland; both Sweden and Finland accepted.
  • Bulgaria (1925): Greece invaded Bulgaria; League’s moral condemnation led to withdrawal of Greek forces and Bulgarian compliance.
  • Kellogg–Briand Pact (1928): $65$ countries agreed to outlaw war.
  • Other humanitarian and humanitarian-related efforts: return of $400{,}000$ prisoners of war; Turkish refugees (1922); leprosy control; crackdown on slave owners; drug company closures in Switzerland and Asia.

Weaknesses and failures of the League

• Structural and political weaknesses:
  • The League was tied to enforcing the Versailles settlement, which many nations resented.
  • Secretariat under-resourced and underpowered.
  • Sanctions relied on consensus and were not often used because they harmed member economies as much as the target’s.
  • Lacked participation of major powers: USA never joined; USSR joined in $1934$; Germany joined in $1926-33$; Britain and France often preferred appeasement over enforcement.
• Key crises illustrating failure:
  • Corfu Crisis (1923): Italian General Tellini was killed; Italy occupied Corfu; League ordered Mussolini to withdraw; Mussolini ignored it; Greece compensated. It showed that League enforcement depended on the power of member states.
  • 1931 Disarmament Conference: Germany demanded parity; negotiation collapsed.
  • 1931 Manchuria Crisis: Japan invaded Manchuria; the League’s response was slow (took a year); by Feb $1933$ Japan withdrew from the League; economic sanctions and arms embargo were ineffective.
  • 1935 Abyssinia Crisis: Mussolini’s invasion; League condemned Italy but Britain and France privately arranged a settlement that effectively conceded portions of Abyssinia; sanctions on arms, rubber, and metals failed; Italy remained at large.
  • 1933–1939: Germany rearmed, remilitarised the Rhineland (1936), annexed Austria (1938) (Anschluss), ceded the Sudetenland (1938) under the Munich Agreement, and invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia (1939); followed by the Nazi–Soviet Pact and Poland invasion.
• Overall consequence: The League’s failures eroded faith in collective security and contributed to the slide toward war in the 1930s.

Hitler as a cause of World War II

• Hitler’s aims (as stated in Mein Kampf, 1924): destroy the Treaty of Versailles, defeat Communism, and restore German greatness; some historians argue he sought a war from the start, others that he steered Europe into war through expansionist policies.
• Key expansionist steps (1933–1939):
  • 1933: Conscription and rearmament, first in secret, later openly.
  • 1936: Remilitarisation of the Rhineland (violation of Versailles); Britain and France did not intervene.
  • 1938: Anschluss with Austria; then Sudetenland crisis leading to the Munich Agreement; Hitler’s pressure and territorial gains.
  • 1939: Invasion of Czechoslovakia in March; guarantee to defend Poland led Britain to prepare for war; invasion of Poland soon after; Britain and France declare war.
• The role of appeasement:
  • In the 1930s, Britain and France pursued appeasement rather than confrontation, driven by:
  • Chamberlain’s fear that a new war would devastate civilization.
  • Public desire for peace in democracies.
  • Perceptions that the Treaty of Versailles was unfair.
  • Fear of Russia and Communist influence.
  • Belief that Britain was not ready to go to war and that Munich provided a window to rearm (roughly $1\text{ year}$).
  • Critics such as A.J.P. Taylor argued appeasement encouraged Hitler by rewarding incremental aggression; Churchill and others argued this emboldened Hitler and failed to check him.
  • Appeasement effectively ended after the Munich crisis; the invasion of Czechoslovakia in $1939$ made it untenable and shifted public opinion against Hitler.
• The Kristallnacht and public opinion:
  • Kristallnacht (Nov $1938$) helped turn public opinion against the Nazi regime and increased resolve in Britain to resist aggression.
• The Nazi–Soviet Pact (August $1939$):
  • An alliance between Hitler and Stalin, including the division of Poland and a non-aggression pact, which paved the way for the invasion of Poland.
  • Stalin initially sought an alliance with Britain against Hitler, but misgivings about Western resolve and strategic risks led to delaying/avoiding action.
  • Why Britain did not ally with USSR (historical considerations):
  • Fear of communism; slow decision-making and cautious diplomacy in Britain; lack of trust between Britain and Stalin.
  • Stalin calculated that in a deal with Hitler he would gain half of Poland with minimal resistance and buy time to prepare for a larger conflict.

The road to World War II: a connected whole

• Historians emphasize five interrelated causes:
  • The Treaty of Versailles and its punitive terms
  • The failure and weaknesses of the League of Nations
  • Adolf Hitler’s foreign policy and expansionist aims (including Aryan supremacy and Lebensraum)
  • The policy of appeasement pursued by Britain and France
  • The Nazi–Soviet Pact and the division of Poland
• The overarching idea: 1919–1939 should be read as a single, connected story of Europe sliding from the peace settlement to a new, total war rather than as isolated topics.
• Real-world relevance: The period demonstrates how punitive peace terms, weak collective security, and opportunistic diplomacy can destabilize international order and lead to conflict.

Connections to foundational principles and real-world relevance

• The debate over punishment vs. reconciliation after major conflict (Versailles) mirrors modern debates about post-conflict settlements and reconciliation.
• The League of Nations illustrates the limits of moral suasion and the need for credible enforcement mechanisms and major-power participation in collective security.
• The rise of an aggressive revisionist power (Hitler) highlights how internal economic and political instability can enable expansionist ideologies when external enforcement is weak.
• Appeasement underscores the tension between immediate peace and long-term security; it invites examination of when concessions become enablers of further aggression.
• The Nazi–Soviet Pact demonstrates the calculus of strategic timing and the sometimes-conflicting interests among great powers, including fear of rival ideologies and the temptation to delay confrontation to preserve strength for later action.

Summary takeaways

• The Versailles Treaty set punitive terms for Germany (war guilt, demilitarisation, reparations, territorial losses) and established the League of Nations, but it failed to secure lasting peace due to German resentment and weak enforcement.
• The League of Nations had early successes but suffered from structural weaknesses, major-power abstention, and inability to act decisively in crises like Corfu, Manchuria, and Abyssinia, ultimately contributing to the erosion of collective security.
• Hitler pursued a deliberate expansionist program from $1933$ onward, breaking terms of Versailles and expanding through the Rhine, Austria, and Czechoslovakia, ultimately triggering World War II when Britain and France chose to defend Poland.
• Appeasement emerged as a policy of accommodation, grounded in fear of another catastrophe and confidence in time to rearm, but it ultimately failed to deter aggression and may have encouraged it.
• The Nazi–Soviet Pact of $1939$ removed a major obstacle to Germany’s invasion of Poland and helped precipitate the outbreak of World War II, though it stemmed from a combination of strategic calculations by both sides.
• The interconnected nature of these events demonstrates how the combined effects of punitive peace terms, weakened collective security, and expansionist leadership can propel a continent toward war, unless countered by credible deterrence, unified action, and timely, principled diplomacy.