The Defeat of the Treaty of Versailles It was not the power of the opposition forces, liberal or conservative, of the U.S. that led to the final defeat of the Treaty of Versailles, but rather the political ignorance, inability and inflexibility of the President, Woodrow Wilson. With the surrender of Germany after WW1, it presented many different ways to create peace. Wilson in 1918 offered his plans for peace in the "Fourteen Points", the most important of which he believed was Article X, the League of Nations. One year later, Wilson led the Paris Peace Conference at Versailles to reach an international pact that included the points. However, the U.S. was never to sign the treaty or join the League of Nations Woodrow Wilson's ideas for peace were well rooted in thought, but in politically applying his ideas, he made unchangeable mistakes.
He also wanted to deregulate state and federal government requirements and liberate business and allow capitalism to flourish making people more prosperous and enabling them to pay more taxes, decreasing federal deficit. He also wanted to strengthen the nation’s defences. It can be argues that reaganomics was not successful in the years 1981 – 89 but it depends on who you ask, the democrats would say it didn’t work where republicans would say it did work. After the Great Depression the consensus was that the government’s main target should be to maintain a low level of unemployment. But the reaganites said that the low unemployment obsession had pushed up public expenditure and led to budget deficits and stagflation and they believed in supply side economics which emphasised growth.
The peace treaty did not satisfy France as it was not harsh enough in the eyes of France. After suffered badly from WWI with umpteen casualties, France was determined to cripple Germany completely as a form of revenge as well as an assurance against future German revival. Some provisions of the treaty did meet French demands, such as the return of Alsace-Lorraine from Germany; the German disarmament which set a maximum strength of 100000 soldiers together with the dissolution of the air force and the reduction of navy to 6 batttleships; and a whopping reparation of 132 billion gold marks to be paid over 42 years. These clauses would severely weaken Germany economically and militarily which certainly catered to French aim. However, French felt these punishments were not harsh enough to eliminate the chance of future German revival.
Additionally, USA never joined due to the fact that when the war ended in 1918, even though Woodrow Wilson pushed USA to join the League of Nations, his plans were confounded by Congress. USA was the leading power of the time, and its absence was a significant setback to the League, as now they had to rely on Britain and France who had been left weaker after WWI. Finally, the League ran on unanimous voting, meaning everyone had to agree for the action to be taken, and the permanent countries; Britain, France, Italy and Japan (who all joined in 1919), had a veto. This was a huge disadvantage because only in a situation where everyone agreed with each other, which was very rare, could an action be taken. In this way we can see that the League of Nations was a failure.
Britain refused to accept freedom of the seas, and neither Britain, France nor Belgium would allow self-determination to the colonies in their empires. Self-determination was not allowed elsewhere – Wilson had wanted Anschluss between Austria and Germany, but this was denied; in 1919 the Czechs took over Teschen by force; and in 1920 Poland attacked and took land inhabited in Russia and Lithuania. All this Wilson had to accept. Finally, when he went home, the Senate refused either to accept the Treaty or to join the League. Wilson tired himself out trying to persuade
The London Conference In the summer of 1933, 66 nations sent delegates to the London Economic Conference. The delegates hoped to organize a coordinated international attack on the global depression. They sought to stabilize the values of various nations' currencies and the rates at which they could be exchanged. President Roosevelt, at first, agreed to send delegates to the conference, but had second thoughts after he realized that an international agreement to maintain the value of the dollar in terms of other currencies wouldn't allow him to inflate the value of the dollar. He declared that America wouldn't take place in the negotiations.
This caused Germany to be able to re-arm their army as much as they wanted without any opposition, even though Britain never consulted France or Italy about the treaty. Because Britain never consulted other countries, it would have caused the countries relationship to decline meaning it was easier for Germany to fully abolish the treaty because the countries didn’t have as much joint power to defeat Germany. This would have caused Hitler to move closer towards his aims. The agreement led to the German army having 800 000 men in its army and having over 2000 aircraft by 1938. This was against the treaty of Versailles meaning he had abolished a term of the treaty bringing Hitler closer to achieving his aim of abolishing the whole treaty.
As well as this collectivisation doubled the amount of grain production in the years 1928 to 1935 meaning more grain was exported. This funded capital investment which was needed to provide resources for industrialisation. Agricultural reform is the most important result of collectivisation as although it had negative consequences such as famine and the decline of living conditions in cities, Stalin had met his aim as mass migration from the countryside to the city had accelerated urbanisation because it provided a workforce in the cities and reduced the amount of peasants. At the beginning of
Germany, after their defeat in World War I, was especially affected by the recession. For this reason, the Lausanne Peace Conference was held. At the Conference, Britain decided to provide Germany with a form of economic aid in return for peace. Because of this, Germany now had the economic resources required to remilitarize. Britain unknowingly was succumbing to Germany’s desire to rearm by providing them with economic aid.
The newly formed German democratic government saw the Versailles Treaty as a dictated peace (Diktat). Not all Germans wanted to sign the surrender the war and accept terms of the treaty. France, which had suffered more damage wise than the other countries in the big four, had insisted upon harsh terms, the peace treaty did not ultimately help to settle the international disputes which had formed to start World War 1. On the contrary, the treaty created inter-European cooperation and started the recovery of problems that caused the war in the first place. Germany felt that the treaty should not be harsh and that it should be created with intentions of future cooperation and efficient, fair recuperation.