The Treaty of Versailles would prove to be one of the most disastrous mistakes in history. To even label it a peace treaty is a lie. The treaty made Germans want to take revenge, because of all the unbearable financial burdens where put on its shoulders. The treaty was the worst mistake the Western democracies made, and Germany was to pay for those mistakes. The Treaty of Versailles left the Germans feeling guilty, humiliated, and resentful.
Also with the France, Britain and USA not agreeing on the terms of the treaty made it even harder for it to end. Germany’s anger from the treaty came from a few of conditions which one wasn’t entirely true. The first of these conditions were that they were to blame for the war, this condition so bad that no man in Germany would sign it not even a soldier under direct orders. Also the amount of money that Germany had to pay back was very unrealistic ($6600 million) and would cripple their country for years to come. There were other factors that Germany thought that were very unfair such as their tiny army and the amount of land that was taken from them.
From the start there was economic instability because of the cost of World War One and there was widespread disillusion within the German people. The public did not support the Weimar, and the administrative branch of the government, including the Judiciary, also teachers did not back it up either. Mass unemployment, damages to the infrastructure also from World War One, and the demand for reparation payments put lots of pressure on the inexperienced democracy. Not only in Germany, but all over Europe, fundamental and anti-democratic movements gained support. 2.
This proves the political instability of Germany in this period as they were the largest party in the Reichstag but still refused to cooperate. This need for the parties to agree cause germanys politics to become unstable yet again because they were unable to agree of unemployment benefits and foreign policy. This led the voter moving to more extremist parties like the KPD who had 10.6% of the vote in 1923. The election of president Hindenburg did not have a positive effect as he was very anti socialists, resulting in him excluding the SPD from the coalition despite their majority and including the DNVP to limit the coverage of the political spectrum in the hope his policies would pass quicker. In terms of economic development, the Dawes and the Young plan definitely helped develop and rebuild Germany’s economy, however there are other factors which counteracted them, making them less effective.
During the early years of the Weimar Republic they encountered many difficulties. One of the major difficulties that they faced was signing the peace treaty after World War One known as the treaty of Versailles, this treaty lead to resentment from the army, economic hardship as well as the introduction of political extremists from the right and the left. The Treaty of Versailles was a treaty drawn up after the war had finished at the Versailles peace conference although Germans were not allowed participation. The loss of territory, war guilt and reparations were some of the major issues Germans found hard to accept. Despite protest by majority of the country the German government agreed to sign the treaty on 28 June 1919.
Germany was forced to take all the blame for damages received by the allies. They were also forced to accept charges of starting the war. This left much of the German population feeling cheated by the ‘Big Four’, moreover, Germany had to pay all damages incurred in the French and Belgian territories during fighting. This subsequently caused great tensions in Germany, as they were bemused as to how they could be held responsible for starting the war, when they felt it was equally the faults of the four allied countries. It is commonly accepted that Germany were eager for a war, however in 1914 they were only responding to events in Sarajevo by agreeing to back Austria, as opposed to starting a war with no origin.
Was the Treaty of Versailles unfair on Germany? The Treaty of Versailles was essentially meant to be a peace treaty for all countries included in the first World War, but ended up causing huge amounts of conflict amongst Germany and the Allies as both saw the Treaty as completely different to each other, the Allies believing that Germany was treated fairly, whereas Germany thought she was treated unfairly and her punishments were unjust. The Germans certainly thought they had been treated unfairly because of several crucial reasons. Due to President Wilson’s fourteen points for a Just Peace, Germany assumed all these rules would to apply to herself as well as the other countries associated with the war. They expected to have open discussions with everyone involved to produce a treaty and that there would not be any secret treaties.
A huge sum of money was being taken out of the German economy, which made it extremely difficult for Germany to compete in the trade market. This created a huge dent in the German economy and angered German citizens as they knew that they were sending huge amounts of money to the Allies. As a result of this term, there was little money left to spend on the remains of the German Military which was another hard blow. This term of the treaty was not fair at all when Germany’s existing losses are taken into account, and it really made Germany suffer during tough times. The treaty would have been far more reasonable had the reparations been made smaller.
The peace settlements left a layer of bitterness specially in Germany. Germans felt that Treaty of Versailles was unjust in holding Germany alone responsible for the war because even if Germany played a vital role in causing the war, the other nations also participated in it and therefore, made a minor war into a total war. In addition, the military terms of the Treaty (army of 100,000, only 6 battleships, no submarines or aeroplanes) is another part that disappointed Germans a lot. For Germans, not to be able to send troops even to places inside Germany was a national insult.The Germans were not invited to negotiate the treaty even. The Versailles Treaty required Germany to pay stiff reparations.
They were also in a country plagued by a financial crisis with the majority of the population automatically having hatred for the government. The treaty of Versailles also posed a serious threat to the government with the country left embarrassed by its ruling and the war guilt that Germany faced. The extreme right in particular were a threat to the republic. The actions of the Spartacists in particular concerned the leaders of the SPD as they knew that they could not rely on the support of the army in the face of a revolt. Thus a deal was done with the right wing (the pre 1918 military, judiciary and civil service).