They were only there to sign the treaty that was forced upon them, regardless of the terms started in the treaty. Germany was not given a chance to contribute their desired terms and was not granted a chance to agree or disagree with the treaty, thus unfair. Germany was also made to be fully responsible for the war. Under the war guilt clause started the Treaty of Versailles, Germany had to shoulder the full blame of the war. By signing the Treaty of Versailles, Germany has been implicated to accept the full responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies.
“A compromise that satisfied nobody.” How far do you agree with this verdict on the treaty of versailles?’’ The treaty of versailles was the peace settlement signed after the WWI between the allied powers and Germany which aimed to make Germany accept the responsibility of causing the war and therefore pay for its consequences. It took six months of negotiations to conclude the treaty as nations had different aims. France urged to cripple Germany thoroughly through maximum reparations and disarmament while Britain and USA were on a more lenient stance. As a result, the final treaty failed to satisfy their individual aims completely. The peace treaty did not satisfy France as it was not harsh enough in the eyes of France.
The Weimar Republic looked to be collapsing from the beginning. All the events that finally led to the ending of democracy in Germany were seemed to be caused by the Treaty of Versailles. The loss of the war for the Germans was a huge turning point as it was seem that the Allies wanted to crush Germany. They were unable to pay the reparations, as extremists from both the right and left wing found the war guilt clause unacceptable. When the Germans had lost World War I, had a huge impact back in Germany.
These terms included Germany having to pay reparations to the Allies, Germany having to accept the war guilt, the seizure of German territories and colonies to the allies, limits on German armed forces, and the establishment of the League of Nations. The following essay will discuss the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and analyse how fair the treaty really was. The first term of the Treaty of Versailles was the huge sum of money that Germany had to pay to the Allies - £6600 million to pay for the damage done to the infrastructure of both countries by the war. This amount of money was well beyond Germany’s ability to pay and Germany was hugely affected as a result. 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.
Germany had lost the war, people, and land already why do they have to make it harder for them to defend themselves in the future? Germany was forced to sign a statement that said that it was the primary cause of the war. How was that true? Serbia pulled the first assassination that caused war not Germany. Lastly, Germany was forbidden to have an air force.
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.
The Treaty of Versailles was a compromise, and it completely satisfied nobody. Georges Clemenceau, Prime Minister of France, did not get everything he wanted out of the Treaty. He was satisfied with clause 231 (which blamed Germany for the war), the disarmament clauses of the Treaty (reducing the army to 100,000, only 6 battleships, no air force or submarines), getting back Alsace-Lorraine, and being given German colonies as mandates on behalf of the League of Nations. But even this did not go far enough. Clemenceau had wanted Germany weakened to the point where it would never be a danger to France ever again.
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.
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.
They put restrictions on the German military, to make Germany weak and a second-rate power. Germany had huge financial losses, which brought the rise of the ultra-nationalist Nazis. They had to take acceptance of responsibility for the damage in the war even though they weren’t the only ones in the war. Germany had absolutely no say in the requirements and matters of the treaty. The Treaty of Versailles would prove to be one of the most disastrous mistakes in history.