The Treaty of Versailles is one of the greatest mistakes in the history of Europe. The Great War had just ended, the first time that a conflict like this spread to all continents, in memory about 10 million dead soldiers and an uncountable number of civilian lives. The heart of Europe was destroyed and a reconstruction was ahead that would undoubtedly generate an economic crisis of gigantic dimensions.
As if that were not enough, from the other side of the Atlantic, the US, now the world's leading power, ready to rule Europe. At the other extreme, in Russia, the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 had triumphed and fear of communism was spreading through the offices of Europe. With all this on the table, European leaders made a mistake that would lead directly to World War II.
The Versailles participants.
The Treaty of Versailles signed on June 28, 1919, was not the only one of the pacts that the losing countries of the 1st World War had to abide by. With each of them and in different castles in the vicinity of Paris, a series of tax measures were reached. With Austria in Saint Germain, with Hungary in Trianon, with Bulgaria in Neuilly and with Turkey in Sèvres. Of course, all these were after the humiliation suffered by the German Empire, in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles.
The signing of the Treaty of Versailles in the Hall of Mirrors
The previous meetings had begun in the winter of 1919, delegations from all over the world arrived in Paris. All continents were represented; Africa with the brief participation of Liberia, or Oceania with Australia and New Zealand. More numerous was the participation of Asians with China and Japan at the head, and especially American countries such as Cuba, Brazil, Canada or Honduras, to name a few. Obviously Europe could not miss the appointment, there were Greece, Portugal, Poland or Belgium, among others. But the main role fell to the great winners, France, Great Britain, Italy and the USA. Obviously among the absences the losers; the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian, the Ottoman, and one that had not lost, but that had to be removed from any negotiating table, the former tsarist Russia now in the hands of the communist Revolution.
For the USA. USA its president Thomas W. Wilson went to Paris I quickly take charge of the meeting. A priori his intentions were to achieve lasting peace in the world. To do this, he presented himself as a champion of democracy that had to be instilled in post-war society, and under his arm a 14-point memorandum that should be the guide for future meetings. Among these points was the end of protectionist measures, to promote the free movement of people and products, a measure very much in keeping with the need to dispose of the industrial surplus of his country, which he had continued to produce while the others were immersed in the war. Other proposals were limited to the area of borders and were mainly concerned with subtracting territories from Germany, and promoting a cordon sanitaire of democratic countries around the Soviets.
The last point was the most important for his delegation. The proposal for a League of Nations , all of them democratic and that since then had to settle the conflicts, forgive the redundancy, democratically. Although the institution worked until World War II, it only served to tackle some minor problems.
Obviously the host country, France also played a leading role. From the hand of its prime minister George Clemenceau brought to the meetings the need to completely isolate Germany. His rivalry as neighboring countries sinks into history, but in Versailles he was still planning revenge for the events of 1871, after the Franco-Prussian war that ended with the German siege of the Parisian capital. Germany had to be blamed for all the responsibility for the war, and therefore motivate the entire reconstruction of France, one of the countries most affected by the war, to be carried out by the Teutons.
One of the meetings, with Clemenceau standing.
Great Britain faced the meetings in a more mediating tone, in short, the delegation led by its prime minister David Lloyd George it had to defend, as is logical, its national interests. These went through continuing to be the main maritime and colonial power in the world. To do this, he had to promote the end of the German fleet, and try to reduce it to a minimum existence. Once his purpose was achieved, as it seemed from the evolution of the negotiations, he had to put a stop to the proposals of the American Wilson, since the British could not allow free navigation both in times of peace and war, since this put in seriously endangers its colonial position.
The last of the main protagonists of Versailles was Italy , hand in hand with its president of the Council of Ministers Vittorio Emmanuel Orlando . This role is usually assigned to him in meetings, but in view of the results we can well think that the business of Versailles turned out badly for the transalpine country. The Italians went to Paris with the demand for the territorial promises, which the allied countries offered for their participation in the Great War. But as soon as he achieved his goals, in the territories he planned to annex after Versailles, a country was born under the protection of the United States that would become Yugoslavia. In a few years, Italy joins Germany, on the way to a new war.
The four main protagonists in Versailles. From left to right, the British, the Italian, the French and the American
The main Versailles agreements.
Part I.
It is dedicated to the creation of the League of Nations, based in the Swiss city of Geneva. On paper, a democratic institution, made up of 42 countries, with one vote each, albeit with a main Council of nine countries and five of them permanently, which will lead the organization. Which, by the way, did not get off to a good start, since its promoter, the United States, soon disappeared from the scene when its own Senate did not approve the inclusion of the country in the organization, which they had promoted.
Part II, III, IV
The purpose of these provisions is to establish the new territory of Germany by drawing down its borders. The most important decision was the return to France of Lorraine and Alsace, as the treaty says:“repair the injustice, done by Germany in 1871 ”. But also in the east it lost territories in favor of Poland (Silesia) and in the north with the delivery of territories to Denmark (Schleswig-Holstein).
In addition, it lost its entire colonial empire, spread across Africa and the Pacific. She was also forced to return the territories conquered during the war, from Belgium, Luxembourg or Czechoslovakia, the latter another of the countries that was born in Europe.
Europe in 1914 before the Great War
The Europe that left the Treaty of Versailles.
Part V.
Entirely dedicated to the dismantling of the German army. As of the definitive application of the Treaty of Versailles, said army could not exceed 100,000 men, including 4,000 officers. One piece of information that can help us measure this figure is the 11 million Germans who fought in the Great War. From that moment on, Germany was prohibited from compulsory military service. In addition, the army had to be distributed throughout the German geography in order not to have large contingents, and its only task was the internal order of the country and the surveillance of the borders.
Clauses were also introduced to disarm Germany. Some data can make us assess the situation, such as the limitation to 84,000 rifles, 1,184 light machine guns and 792 heavy. The powerful German fleet would be reduced to 6 battleships, 12 torpedo boats and no submarines, that is, Germany would be left without its main asset at sea. The rest of the ships were to be put in reserve or used as merchant ships. Nine days before the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, Admiral Ludwig von Reuter ordered the 51 German ships that were in Scapa Flow Bay to be sunk so that they would not fall into British hands. Lastly, the prohibition of maintaining German aviation should be highlighted. Only the first months after the signing would allow 100 seaplanes, with the sole mission of collecting underwater mines at sea.
Scapa Flow
Part VIII.
We come to the most controversial point of the Treaty of Versailles, the nefarious article 231 for history.
“The allied and associated governments declare and Germany acknowledges that she and her allies are responsible, for having caused them, for all the losses and all the damages suffered by the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals in consequence of the war, which has been imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies."
As such, it was forced to pay all the costs of the reconstruction. Those days in Paris were closed without even putting a definitive figure. As if that were not enough punishment, a Compensation Commission was created to channel all the claims of the victorious countries. Only two years later, at the London Conference the accounts were closed, claiming 6.5 billion pounds from Germany. I don't think it was the biggest problem for the Germans to assume a figure, on the other hand, unaffordable. The matter was different, Germany had suffered the greatest offense that can be caused to a country, I do not think there were many Germans at that time who did not feel deeply humiliated.
Of the rest of the parts of the treaty, presumably, they have already lost importance for the Germans, despite also being abusive. They were referring to the financial clauses, forcing Germany to borrow from allied countries. To the loss of the resources of the mining exploitation of the Cuenca del Sarre, which passed to France. The control of German river trade by the allied countries, and endless guarantees so that they would collect the amount of reparations from the Germans.
The Sarre basin, one of the most important coal mining areas in Europe
Consequences of the Treaty of Versailles.
Note that some were suffered for a long time, just remember the terrible Yugoslav wars at the end of the 20th century, which undoubtedly have their origin in Versailles.
As far as Germany is concerned, it is not hard to imagine how stigmatized the characters who signed the treaty in question would be. The military soon withdrew from the scene, since they did not go to Paris. The "honor" fell to a series of politicians headed by the socialist Scheidemann and the Catholic Erzberger, that is, a kind of concentration government that was to launch the newborn German Republic, later called Weimar, because of the place where it met. the Constituent Assembly.
But the worst was brewing those same days under the Versailles decisions. Adolf Hitler was one of those soldiers who, once the Great War was over, wandered through the army, from post to post, seeking relevance that had been prohibited by the impositions of the Paris treaty. With no solution of continuity between the military ranks, he decides to enter politics, possibly the best place he could think of to restore the mighty German army. It is evident that he did not lack reasons, a few days after leaving the army, the German Workers Party changes its name to be renamed German National Socialist Workers Party , Adolf Hitler enters his ranks, only a year later he was already president and a swastika illuminated his shield. The rest of the story is well known.
Adolf Hitler during the Great War.
Whoever claims to see in this article the justification for Hitler's criminal barbarism is totally wrong. It is evident that Hitler was the greatest Psychopath of the 20th century, if not one of the greatest, since there were several. But that the breeding ground that he found in Germany, for a large part of the country to follow, is due to the disastrous Treaty of Versailles is also beyond doubt. As it is beyond any doubt, that Hitler was the first and only cause of the Second World War.
More info:
Contemporary history (1914-1989), cood. Hipólito de la Torre Gómez, Ramón Areces University Building, 2010.
Twentieth-Century History, Eric Hobsbawm, Critical Ed., 1994
Treaty of Versailles, National Archives of Honduras.