Welcome to the first, of hopefully many more, N&D historical discussions and debates! Our first topic is the Treaty of Versailles. The following is a brief outlining of the Treaty, as well as points of differing opinion.

On June 28, 1919 the Treaty of Versailles was officially signed. Perhaps no other treaty in modern history has been the subject of such intense debate as has been the Treaty of Versailles. The victors instituted harsh, punitive measures against Germany. Were they justified in this action? Should Germany have been allowed to join the treaty-making process as they had been told they would be when they signed the armistice in November 1918? Germans complained that the treaty was unfair and vindictive; however, following the withdrawal of Russia from the war, the terms Germany imposed upon Russia in the Brest-Litovsk treaty were hardly fair either. Does this have any effect on your opinion with regards to German complaints about the Treaty of Versailles?

Perhaps one of the more discussed elements of the Treaty of Versailles is the allegation which critics lay upon it by stating that Adolf Hitler would not have been able to come to power in Germany had it not been for the excessive nature of the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler successfully used Germany’s contempt for the treaty, and perhaps more importantly the German democratic leaders (dubbed “the November Criminals”) who signed it, as a rallying point which appealed even to those who otherwise believed him to be an extremist. Could Hitler have come to power without the help of the Treaty of Versailles? Did the treaty make WWII inevitable?

The key players in writing the treaty were Georges Clemenceau, Prime Minister of France; David Lloyd George, PM of Britain, and Woodrow Wilson, President of the U.S. Each of these personalities came to the table with dramatically different ideas of a post-war Europe, and for that matter, a post-war world. For the sake of brevity here, I will simply direct you to Google or Wikipedia to read more about what each of these men sought from the treaty.

Clemenceau and the French were ardently in favor of “bringing Germany to its knees.” As its neighbor, did France have a legitimate basis for this belief? The British public wanted revenge as well; however, Lloyd George often offered a more cautious post-war view of Europe, but often let the politician in himself make decisions to keep his nation (and France) happy, rather than fight for what would have been less popular, but that he believed to be the correct course. That is my take on it, which certainly is open to debate as well.

The American public was very isolationist, and wished nothing more than to let Europe do as she pleased, and America would do the same. Woodrow Wilson outlined his Fourteen Points, which detailed his post-war endeavors. Central to these was a League of Nations, which he felt would allow all future disputes to be settled diplomatically. Additionally, Wilson was often the most conciliatory of the Big Three to thoughts of Germany. So, who in particular was most to blame/credit for the Treaty of Versailles? Would history have been different if Wilson had gotten his way more often; if so, how?

The preceding was intended to be a very shallow skimming of the details merely to ask questions and get a discussion started. From this point, hopefully people will respond and we can find points to debate, which are certainly not limited to the rather narrow focus which I have just written. And best of all, maybe we can all learn something, I know I hope to.

Here are the terms of the Treaty of Versailles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles

Treaty terms

Overview
The terms of the Treaty, which Germany had no choice but to accept, were announced on May 7, 1919. Germany lost:

13% of its national territory
All of its overseas colonies (including Kamerun, German East Africa, German Southwest Africa, Togoland and German New Guinea)
12.5% of its population (mitigated subsequently by major demographic shifts)
16% of its coalfields, and 48% of its iron and steel industry.

Territorial restrictions on Germany
Alsace-Lorraine yielded to France.
Saar coal fields placed under French control for 15 years.
Annexation of Austria was prohibited.
Annexation of Czechoslovakia prohibited.
Annexation of Poland and Danzig prohibited.
Loss of all overseas colonies.
Part of Upper Silesia ceded to Poland.
Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia became independent states (acquired by Germany from Russia at Brest-Litovsk).


Military restrictions on Germany
The Rhineland to be a demilitarized zone.
The German armed forces cannot number more than 100,000 troops and no conscription.
Enlisted men to be retained for at least 12 years; officers to be retained for at least 25 years.
Manufacturing of weapons is prohibited.
Import and export of weapons is prohibited.
Manufacture or stockpiling of poison gas is prohibited.
Tanks are prohibited.
Naval forces limited to 15,000 men, 6 battleships (no more than 10,000 tons displacement each), 6 cruisers (no more than 6,000 tons displacement each), 12 destroyers (no more than 800 tons displacement each) and 12 torpedo boats (no more than 200 tons displacement each).
Submarines are prohibited.
Military aircraft are prohibited.
Artillery is prohibited.
Blockades on ports are prohibited.

Legal restrictions on Germany
Article 231: forced to accept sole responsibility of war and had to promise to make good all the damage done to civilian population of the allies. Also known as the "War Guilt Clause".
Article 227: former German emperor, Wilhelm II was charged with supreme offence against international morality. He was to be tried as a war criminal.
Article 228-230: many were tried as war criminals. Some could not be tried as they were hiding.

Territorial losses
On its eastern frontier Germany was forced to cede to the newly independent Poland the province of West Prussia, thereby granting Poland access to the Baltic Sea, while the province of East Prussia became an enclave being separated from mainland Germany. Danzig was declared a free city under the permanent governance of the League of Nations. Much of the province of Posen, which, like West Prussia, had been acquired by Prussia in the late 18th-century partitions of Poland, was likewise granted to the restored Polish state. A significant portion of coal-rich and industrially developed Upper Silesia was also transferred from Germany to Poland, as the result of a later plebiscite (The disinterest of the officials conducting those and other plebiscites in postwar Germany is questionable[citation needed]).

Germany was also compelled to yield control of its colonies. Although these colonies had proven to be economic liabilities, they had also been symbols of the world-power status that Germany had gained in the 1880s and '90s. Article 156 of the treaty transferred German concessions in Shandong, China to Japan rather than returning sovereign authority to China. Chinese outrage over this provision led to demonstrations and a cultural movement known as the May Fourth Movement and influenced China not to sign the treaty. China declared the end of its war against Germany in September 1919 and signed a separate treaty with Germany in 1921.

Besides the loss of the German colonial empire the territories Germany lost were:

Alsace-Lorraine, the territories which were ceded to Germany in accordance with the Preliminaries of Peace signed at Versailles on February 26, 1871, and the Treaty of Frankfurt of May 10, 1871, were restored to French sovereignty without a plebiscite as from the date of the Armistice of November 11, 1918. (area 14,522 km², 1,815,000 inhabitants (1905)).
Northern Schleswig was returned to Denmark following a plebiscite on 14 February 1920 (area 3,984 km², 163,600 inhabitants (1920)). The territory surrendered to Denmark included the German-dominated town of Tondern (Tønder), Hadersleben (Haderslev which was predominantly Danish and two additional towns, Apenrade (Aabenraa) and Sonderburg (Sønderborg) that were split more evenly between the two sides but with small German majorities. The rural districts of Northern Schleswig were overwhelmingly Danish, in particular the northern, western and eastern regions. Central Schleswig, including the city of Flensburg, opted to remain German in a separate referendum on 14 March 1920.
Most of the Prussian provinces of Posen and of West Prussia, which Prussia had annexed in Partitions of Poland (1772-1795), were ceded to Poland. This territory had already been liberated by local Polish population during the Great Poland Uprising of 1918-1919 (area 53,800 km², 4,224,000 inhabitants (1931), including 510 km² and 26,000 inhabitants from Upper Silesia) (This includes parts of West Prussia that were ceded to Poland to provide free access to the sea, creating the Polish Corridor.
The Hlučínsko (Hultschin) area of Upper Silesia to Czechoslovakia (area 316 or 333 km², 49,000 inhabitants).
The eastern part of Upper Silesia to Poland (area 3,214,km², 965,000 inhabitants), after the plebiscite for the whole of Upper Silesia, which was provided for in the Treaty, and the ensuing partition along voting lines in Upper Silesia by the League of Nations following protests by the Polish inhabitants.
The area of German cities Eupen and Malmedy to Belgium. The trackbed of the Vennbahn railway also transferred to Belgium.
The area of Soldau in East Prussia (railway station on the Warsaw-Danzig route) to Poland (area 492 km²),
The northern part of East Prussia known as Memel Territory under control of France, later occupied by Lithuania.
From the eastern part of West Prussia and the southern part of East Prussia, after the East Prussian plebiscite a small area to Poland,
The province of Saarland to be under the control of the League of Nations for 15 years, after that a plebiscite between France and Germany, to decide to which country it would belong. During this time the coal to be sent to France.
The port of Danzig with the delta of the Vistula River at the Baltic Sea was made the Freie Stadt Danzig (Free City of Danzig) under the League of Nations (area 1,893 km², 408,000 inhabitants (1929)).
Germany acknowledges and will respect strictly, the independence of Austria.

Reparations
Main article: World War I reparations
Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles assigned blame for the war to Germany; much of the rest of the Treaty set out the reparations that Germany would pay to the Allies.

The total sum due was decided by an Inter-Allied Reparations Commission. The war reparations that Entente demanded from Germany was 226 billion Reichsmarks in gold (around £11.3 billion), then reduced to 132 billion Reichsmarks. In 1921, this number was officially put at £4,990,000,000, or 132 billion marks.

The Versailles reparation impositions were partly a reply to the reparations placed upon France by Germany through the 1871 Treaty of Frankfurt signed after the Franco-Prussian War. Note however that the amount of the reparations demanded in the treaty of Versailles were comparatively larger (5B Francs vs. 132B Reichsmark). Indemnities of the Treaty of Frankfurt were in turn calculated, on the basis of population, as the precise equivalent of the indemnities imposed by Napoleon I on Prussia in 1807.[10] The Versailles Reparations came in a variety of forms, including coal, steel, intellectual property (eg. the patent for Aspirin) and agricultural products, in no small part because currency reparations of that order of magnitude would lead to hyperinflation, as actually occurred in postwar Germany (see 1920s German inflation). While the economic ruination this would inflict on Germany did not significantly distress the French government, the subsequent devaluation of their own reparations did.

The standard view is that the reparations, particularly forcing Germany to accept the entire blame and lose some of their land, were the cause of Germany's economic woes and the concomitant rise of Nazism to power.


League of Nations
The treaty provided for the creation of the League of Nations, a major goal of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. The League of Nations was intended to arbitrate international disputes and thereby avoid future wars. Only three of Wilson's Fourteen Points were realized, since Wilson was compelled to compromise with Clemenceau, Lloyd George and Orlando on some points in exchange for retaining approval of Wilson's "fourteenth point", the League of Nations.[

Frankly, the french kinda of got what they deserve on WWII

I'm going to definitely say yes to this one, and I'll offer Benito Mussolini as proof. Nationalism was really starting to sweep the globe in that period of time, and Mussolini was wildly successful with it, even with Italy siding with the Entente in WWI.

I'll have to think about the rest for a little while.

Great write-up aprilfifth. Thanks for doing it.

This is something I've wondered about. If France and England wanted to cripple Germany permanently why didn't they just break the country up into a series of smaller states? Germany was left intact while Austria-Hungary was broken apart. Obviously, no reparations would have been forthcoming. How important was that to them when the treaty was signed? Also, it seems naive to assume that a society as organized as German society was would remain complascent in the absence of occupation. So failing either the dismantling of the German state or the total occupation of the country, how could they have thought that Germany would not eventually seek to restore it's position in the European power hierarchy?

Were they justified in this action? -Yes

Should Germany have been allowed to join the treaty-making process as they had been told they would be when they signed the armistice in November 1918? - I don't see why not.

Does this have any effect on your opinion with regards to German complaints about the Treaty of Versailles? - Nope, not really.

Could Hitler have come to power without the help of the Treaty of Versailles? He sure could have.

Did the treaty make WWII inevitable? - absolutely not!

As its neighbor, did France have a legitimate basis for this belief? - I guess that depends on what "bringing Germany to its knees" meant.

So, who in particular was most to blame/credit for the Treaty of Versailles? - Obviously the people who signed it

Perhaps I should have said Would Hitler have come to power, etc... rather than "could." Anything could happen, but would it have?

Sure, Hitler could have. But I think it becomes much more unlikely. For one thing, the German populace never really embraced the Weimar Republic, and I believe a large reason for this was because they were the ones who signed the Treaty. Which, you have to remember, German's felt betrayed because many felt that they hadn't really lost the war. Of course, this wasn't the situation at all, but with the fact that the German army hadn't been pushed back into German territory, and the nation was still structurally (sp?) intact along with other things caused the armistice to seem to be a stunning turning of events to many citizens. If the terms of the treaty hadn't been so insulting to Germany, with huge reparations, along with the war guilt clause, which rightly or wrongly infuriated Germans as well, and territorial losses, most notably Alsace and Lorraine, and Danzig, I don't think the people would have been as ready to see the Weimar Republic swept aside. I'm just not convinced the climate would have been right in Germany for extremists like Hitler, or communists on the other hand, to have gained the following which they did if it wasn't for the Treaty.

I think you answer your own question. Reparations. I think that was a huge part of it. I think a lot of it was a direct response to the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, which Prussia won and instituted harsh reparations as well as some territorial changes, including Alsace- Lorraine, against France.

I think one of the hardest things to do when evaluating this treaty is to attempt to put ourselves in the mindset of 1919. Which more often than not, was a 19th century mindset. The naivity and often simple-minded singular focus of leaders on both sides is surprising, if not stunning. We usually equate WWI with WWII and link those two wars together, when it would be just as accurate to link the Franco-Prussian War and WWI together. I think Bart would probably be able to offer more insight on this, but in my opinion WWI, and in turn the treaty at its' conclusion, is an extension of decades, if not centuries, old rivalries, and seen as part of this game of war, conquest and territorial expansion. Germany of course was late on the scene to this game, and sought her own piece of the pie, whereas Britain and France not only wanted to maintain their own empires, but many of their leaders, even in 1919, were still seeking to further broaden their own empire and influence. France didn't just want to "bring Germany to her knees" for WWI, but also to avenge their humiliation in 1870.

I think out of all the penalties listed there, the biggest one would probably be the penalties on the iron, steel, and coal industries; and the reparations obviously had an effect, too. I'm pretty sure the severe economic hardship (not so much nationalism) is what created an environment ripe for Hitler to take control in. Of course, they may have suffered through that anyways, but it certainly didn't help.

Even so, I'm not necessarily opposed to reparations, if that is what everybody agrees is fair (how impartial is the organization that decided what the penalty should be?). Germany probably should have been involved in the process, though.

Agreed. Mussolini swept in on the nationalism front in 1922 with his March on Rome. Hitler swung and missed on his attempt to ride into power on a wave of nationalism with his failed Beer Hall Putsch.

Yeah. My grandmother grew up in Germany, and from the stories I've heard, there was certainly alot of nationalist rhetoric coming from the regime, but they were more concerned about the fact that they had no food on the table. That's also why the holocaust worked politically, as they perceived the Jews as having an unfair share of the wealth (my grandmother said they were unaware of what was actually being done to the Jews). It's really been awhile since I've talked with her about it, I really should ask for some stories before she dies.

Maybe it isn't specifically Hitler that comes to power, and maybe it doesn't happen as soon as it did, but I'd still imagine that Germany would be susceptible to a fascist or communist swing in power. They wouldn't be the only ones, though. The Great Depression caused hardships that made people desperate for change. Heck, even the United States falls under this category. It's been argued that even if the New Deal wasn't very successful in its economic goals, it nevertheless helped ward off a revolution that could have been far worse.

I guess what's intriguing me the most of a non-Hitler timeline in the absence of Versailles is whether nationalism, and fascism in particular, take longer to be generally dismissed, if at all. If regimes like those of Mussolini or Franco are given more time to mature, would they look more appealing to other countries?

Yeah. My grandmother grew up in Germany, and from the stories I've heard, there was certainly alot of nationalist rhetoric coming from the regime, but they were more concerned about the fact that they had no food on the table. That's also why the holocaust worked politically, as they perceived the Jews as having an unfair share of the wealth (my grandmother said they were unaware of what was actually being done to the Jews). It's really been awhile since I've talked with her about it, I really should ask for some stories before she dies.[/quote]

I had a professor who grew up in Germany, she was born in like 1928/29 or so. She was Jewish, and would listen to the barrage of lies and propaganda at school, etc. She tells a story of her teacher telling the class that there were no tomatoes in Germany because the Jews were stealing and hoarding them all. So she comes home and lo and behold, her mom is at the sink slicing a tomato. So she starts crying and yelling "It is true!! Why are the Jews stealing all the tomatoes?!? Why would you steal tomatoes mommy!?" Of course, the real answer was they had their own little garden in the backyard. Stories like that I find fascinating. Definitely try to hear as many stories as you can from you grandmother.

Creepy stuff, but important to hear.

I think lots of lessons were learned from the ToV that lead to a much safer, saner world coming out of WWII.

Take out your revenge during the act of war and not part of the peace treaty.
The primary cause of war is economics. It's in the winning side's own best interest to help rebuild the losing side's infrastructure and economy.

The main lesson of Versailles is that you have to either completely demolish a nation and build it back from nothing, or treat it with respect at the bargaining table. Versailles was sort of a half-assed victory, with everyone thinking about the immediate future and noone thinking about the long term.

I don't understand why the Allies didn't dismantle Germany... It had only been unified some 50 years prior. But the reparations weren't so extreme considering the US forced the Allies to repay their war debts to us, and, at least in France's case, industry was destroyed in many places. One of Hitler's main points in calling for the overthrow of the Weimar traitors is that the Allies never stepped onto German soil before the Germans gave in. While this was true(I think?), it was inevitable that more war would have simply caused harm to the German people and an eventual loss which would have been more painful, which the leaders who signed the treaty didn't want. One clause that was unfair, completely, was the "War Guilt Clause." This clause, more than any other, was a cause for German hatred of the treaty. Them being forced to cede territory wasn't unfair, because most of that had been taken from other nations in fairly recent history. While realization of Wilson's idealism could have helped stave off other conflicts, such as some of those occuring presently in the ME, it would likely not have prevented a second WW, at least without being overly unfair to the French(who were deserving of reparations for the destruction of their land, especially since they were being forced to pay the war debts to the US). If the US had given up its claims for repayment of war debts, reparations from the Germans would not have been so necessary. And as it was, they defaulted on most of them anyway.

One large reason the treaty didn't work, that I wanted to emphasize again, was that the Allies did not cause destruction on German soil, so many Germans, prideful as they were, naively thought they were sold out, and still had a chance at winning the war. Which Nazi leaders took full advantage of in taking power.

I think Lloyd George was fearful of communism spreading from Russia and filling the vacuum that would be created. And France also wanted a buffer between themselves and communism. I think it's important to remember that following WWI, and even for a little while after Hitler took power, he (or a strong rightist gov't) was seen as the lesser of two evils, the other being communism of course.

I'm shocked that so many people are so wrong on this...

Look, you could have decimated Germany economically. Reduced their economic capacity even more, you could have doubled the reperations. So what? Hitler could have rose to power. Big deal. Who cares. What ultimately allows WWII to happen is European complacency and naivety in regards to Hitler and his intentions. It was the complacency of Chamberlain and France that led to WWII. Even America can be thrown into the pot.

The fact of the matter is that if the Versailles treaty had actually been UPHELD to its strictest form, Germany would have never re-industrialized, would have never been able to rebuild a military industrial complex, and would have never had the assets, funds, or the ability to wage a war against anybody. Hitler and his crew are first and foremost responsible for WWII surely, but the next burden of responsibility lies on those who turned a blind eye to everything Hitler was doing, and lagged off on their commitments to the Versailles treaty. The Versailles treaty was strict with good reason. It was simply...revenge. It was WWII as well.

Somehow the whole Communism thing had slipped my mind.
That does make a lot of sense.

To LW: The problem with upholding, strictly, the treaty, and the reason it was not upheld, was not the leaders first and foremost, but the people, who didn't want war. The people wanted "peace in our time." I agree with your assessment that if it had been upheld strictly, it would have prevented war from happening in the way it did, but the Allies weren't in any mood to be an occupying force at that time.