Clemenceau resented Wilson’s generous attitude towards Germany and Lloyd George’s desire to not treat Germany too harshly. He said “if they British are so anxious to appease Germany they should look overseas and make colonial, naval or commercial concessions”. These disagreements left the big three unsatisfied and ultimately left them with a weak mere shadow of a perhaps great treaty due to their own arrogance and. It contained many faults and weaknesses. The treaty of Versailles greatly humiliated Germany forcing it to accept soul responsibility for the war.
And the U.S. and Germany could not agree upon what to do with Germany, so it ended up being divided: West Germany to U.S. and Great Britain and West Germany to the Soviets. I believe this was a major event that made the cold war inevitable. Both sides could not come to an agreement and this led to the Berlin Blockade. Russia was trying to starve the West Berliners and the U.S. responded by flying in supplies. The blockade was a devastating crisis that solved nothing.
The treaty of Versailles was a between Austria-Hungary and Germany being the central powers, British, France and the U.S being the Allied powers. The leaders of the countries that signed the treaty were George Clemenceau, prime minister of France, David Lloyd George, for Britain, and Woodrow Wilson, president of the U.S. All three political leaders wanted different things for the treaty and sometimes did not agree with each other. Georges Clemenceau’s main objective was to ensure France’s security so that they don’t get invaded again. He was determined to keep Germany down and wanted revenge against them. He wanted to punish Germany and weaken them for what they have caused to European countries and wanted them to pay for the reparations so that France can rebuild itself.
Because there were so many German-speaking people and “Self Determination”, the Sudetenland was thought to belong to a German leader. The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty that put an end to World War I between the allies and central powers. The policy of appeasement was one of the main reason World War II plunged. Appeasement is simply giving up land in order to avoid upcoming war. During World War II, there were many acts of aggression.
The loss of these lands was particularly daunting for Russia since they were of great economic importance. Thus, in comparison with the harsh terms of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, the Germans were in no position or right to complain about the consequences they had to face. The Treaty of Versailles was actually issued quite lenient punishments for the Germans when considering the damage wrought by the war. However, to charge Germany as being fully responsible for the Great War was also unfair and faulty. The assassination of the Archduke of Austria had prompted Austria-Hungary to retaliate by declaring war on Serbia, with the support of Germany.
The peace of the mighty proved that to be wrong. The German Army in the field, although battered was still formidable in the eyes of the German leadership. They had gone to the peace table hoping for scraps and got the business end of the newspaper. The German Peace Delegation was forced to assume blame for the war, and then sit helplessly by as territories it felt were largely inhabited with Germans were made part of other states. The Germans had come to the table hoping to hear Wilson saying, “the equality of nations upon which peace much be founded on if it is to last must be an equality of rights..” (German Peace Delegation, p. 76) Instead they were hit with several Billion reichmarks in reparations, a reduced military and many other limitations politically, economically, militarily and territory wise (The Versailles Treaty, 1918).
Georges Clemenceau wanted revenge. He wanted to be sure that Germany could never start another war again. Lloyd George personally agreed with Wilson but knew that the British public agreed with Clemenceau. He tried to find a compromise between Wilson and Clemenceau. Germany had been expecting a treaty based on Wilson's 14 points and were not happy with the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.
Not only did the people of Germany feel betrayed by a man of their own country but consequently, had no faith in the new democratic system. The ‘November Criminals’ including Matthias Erzberger, Phillipp Scheidemann and Friedrich Ebert were regarded as unnationalistic. The reaction of the German people was further intensified by the signing of the Versailles Treaty in June 1919. Historian Richard Hunt argues that ‘it was the shame of weakness that seized Germany’s national psychology and served as a solvent of the Weimar democracy’. Whether compliant with this view or not, the fact was that the German population was not backing the leaders of this new constitution, which was damaging to its effectiveness.
Rachel Kay How accurate is it to say Frederick William IV was responsible for the failure of the Frankfurt Parliament? The Frankfurt Parliament was established to create freedom of press, German citizenship for all, fair taxation, equality of political rights and to create a unified Germany. However, countries like Austria greatly opposed it. Frederick William IV could be seen as responsible for the failure of the Frankfurt Parliament because he refused to accept any form of leadership and made it clear he distrusted the ‘gentlemen of Frankfurt’. However, many other factors played a role in the demise of the Parliament such as the fact that they were ill-organised, the lack of popular support and their inability to enforce decisions.
Hitler got away with this because Britain had sympathy for Germany and in 1935 signed a naval agreement with them. France was angry that Germany was re-army but there was little they could do as most countries were doing the same, especially after the disappointment of the Disarmament conference.. The failure of the League of Nations in the 1930s also contributed towards the outbreak of war. It was powerless throughout the 1920s as it was more interested in trying to keep good relations with the other countries so it would have allies against Hitler if he ever attacked. The League also didn’t work because America didn’t join and it was the American President Woodrow Wilson who created it and it would never have worked unless all the nations were allowed to join.