Causes of WW2 - the Versailles Treaty

Split from "Greatest mistakes of World War II"

Please don't tell me that Versailles is the reason for WW2!
Surely, the Versailles peace treaty was not perfect, but what exactly in it would you have changed, given the circumstances of 1918?

I for my part have always considered that Germany didn't get away too badly with the Versailles treaty.

 

Not The Reason but one of the most important.
I think, the whole arrangement was humiliating for Germany and Austria. After the armistice, there seemed to be a chance of an agreement, so that no part should be disgraced or offended. The Centrals were treated as pariahs. A big mistake.
The blockade was kept tight, while in Germany there was a severe starvation. It wasn´t civilized. The Centrals were not negotiating parts, had no say whatsoever. Do you treat great powers like that? Knowing, they are going to be your neighbors forever? It´s just the beginning of it.

I could continue, but, I think, most of us know the conditions, which were severe and the fact that the Centrals got all the blame for the war. I don´t think it was exactly fair.

I understand, you have your nationals feelings, maybe even think that it was right to treat Germans like that. You have heard a lot about French sufferings, no doubt – horrible suferings.

But many people in Europe and outside criticised the Treaty. Not because they sided with Germans but because it wasn´t fair. Poland was also terribly destroyed by the war but nobody asked about compensations. And the war-impoverished Germany was made to pay for everything. I know that they finally didn´t do it fully, but the atmosphere of hope was gone.
Only hope of revenge remained.
I know, the economic crises etc. did their part too. Stalin also helped Hitler to power. (sorry, Schickelgruber), but Versailles started the evil spiral. That is of course my private opinion.
I didn´t want to provoke you.
When you just say, that the treaty wasn´t perfect, I tend to think, it´s an understatement. IMO it was far from perfect, an one of those, who understood it early was Lloyd George.

 

I see it like this:

Germany and Austria were largely responsible for the war.
Sure, no country was totally innocent, but the burden of responsability lay largely on Germany and Austria.
The fact that in the treaty the centrals got all the blame for the war wasn't that wrong and has been confirmed by lots of historians since then.

It wasn't possible just to tell the germans something like:"OK, you lost the war, let's return to the 1914 situation and make like nothing happened."
Both Britain and France had lost over a million soldiers in the war.Great parts of northern France were destroyed by the war, as were great parts of Belgium.
Virtually every family in France had lost a son, a father, a brother....
While from far away, or from neutral countries it might have been possible to call not to severely treat Germany, in the belligerant nations that was practically impossible.
France, Britain, Belgium and others wanted a guarantee that in the future, Germany would not be able to invade them anymore.

Territorially Germany did not get away too badly
- they lost Alsace and the Département of Moselle to France.Those provinces always since Germany took them in 1871 had wanted to be part of France.

-In the east they lost territories to the new state of Poland.Those territories were mostly inhabitated by Poles, tough there was a considerable german minority.

The fact that the defeated country looses a part of it's territory was a principle before Versailles, and after it.

The war reparations that were asked, were an economical necessity for France.(Don't really know for Britain).
In order to pay for it's war debt, France had no alternative but to ask for reparations from the country that had invaded it, and was responsible for the debt.
No doubt that if Germany had won, they would have done the same.

The germans complained much about the unfairness of the Versailles treaty, but just look what treaty they imposed upon Russia some month before in march 1918, the treaty of Brest Litovsk.
Germany took the most industrialized and best farmlands of Russia.
Russia had to supply them with food while their own population was starving.

So, the Versailles treaty imposed harsh terms on Germany, and I can easily understand that the majority of germans saw it as unfair but I also can understand the allied side which wanted some reward for their sacrifices.
Also, had Britain and France been willing to make Germany respect the treaty, WW2 would have been avoided.

Another reason I simply have a problem with the statement that Versailles is the cause of WW2, is that when the war was stared in 1939, there was barely anything left of the Versailles treaty.

 

I very much agree with Castelot, its very easy to critisize Versailles but less easy to suggest an alternative. I don't see how Germany could complain about the territorial losses - they had taken ground after their 19th century victory over France (and Denmark and Austria for that matter), they must have know they would lose land after a defeat.

Reparations is a stick oft used to beat the peacemakers, but two points are seldom mentioned - 1) reparations were a part of war, Germany had imposed what she felt would be crippling reparations on France after the war of 1870, so it was a little hypocritical to object to having to pay them in defeat. and 2) Britain and France were financialy exhausted by the war, add to that the fact that France had had some of her prime agricultural and industrial land destroyed by fighting or occupied for four years at terrible financial and ecconomic cost. Belgium had fared proportianatly even worse in this respect and Italy had also suffered. Unlike the aftermath of WWII there was no Marshal Plan to assist recovery, Europe was on its own, why should France and Belgium pay for damage caused by the German armys invasion? Britain and France had also ammassed vast debts in the course of the war, were they expected to hike taxes on an already exhausted public? Or take the money from the powers who had caused the war? Had ecconomic stability returned after the war the reparations would have been largely irrelevant, had the Wall Street crash not taken place the restructured payments would not have been a problem.

It is also easy now to argue in favour of concepts like peace without victory or not punnishing the defeated, Wilson for example could afford to take such a high minded position - his country had not been nearly destroyed and exhausted by the war, Lloyd George and Clemenceau could not take that view. How could they have said to the widows and orphans of Britain and France Thanks for your the sacrifice of your men folk, thanks to all of you who have lost friends and four years of your youth, but its all over now and we're going to pretend nothing happend and it was all a mistake?

Lastly had the Allies enforced the terms of the treaty when Hitler began to violate them, there would have been no Second war

 

"They did it first"..or "they would do the same thing to us if they were in our position" might be emotionally satisfying responses to the issue of whether the harshness of the treaty led directly to WW II but they don't address the isssue at hand but instead are rationalizations.
Few serious historians have doubted that the Versailles Treaty was a major factor leading directly to WW II. I say that not as an appeal to higher authorities debate technique but as an establishment of where the burden of proof lies. To overcome that heavy burden of proof and revise history requires a very convincing argument backed up with some supporting data (where applicable).

 

When WW2 started in september 1939 there was as I said not much left of the treaty of Versailles.

-Germany had not paid any reparations for nearly 10 years
-Germany had rearmed
-It had openly given up any claims about Alsace
-It had regained it's full sovereignity
All that was left of Versailles, were Germany's boundaries with Poland.

I admit that Versailles was a major factor in helping Hitler come to power, but not a main reason for the start of WW2.
In 1939 the Versailles treaty was history, but the war occured neverthelss.
Hitlers war objectives had nothing to do with simply challenging the international order of the Versailles treaty but were much more ambitious.

But I would really be interested what the critics of the Versailles treaty would have done differentely in 1918.
Was Versailles really that harsh as compared to other peace treaties?
Was it harsher than the peace Germany imposed to France in 1870 or Russia in 1918, was it harsher than the unconditional surrender of 1945?

 

It may be that the Versailles treaty was proportional to the destruction of WW2, but that doesn't justify it. First of all, a single country could never be blamed for the military alliances that prevailed in Europe in 1914; neither can it be blamed for the terrible diplomatic traffic of July 1914 of which the escalation was largely Russia's fault.

In any case, much too much of this treaty was based on French emotion, not even French reason but French emotions of unsafety, hatred, vengefulness and blame-pointing. Even if these are all based on actual memories they are still not a good idea to base a treaty on, especially if you don't knock out the enemy hard enough never to come back (see Machiavelli).

 

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No, but Germany can very well be blamed for having declared war to Russia and France without anything forcing them to do so.
Germany did invade neutral Belgium,(where their troops comitted uncounted atrocities).
There is no doubt that Germany was the main responsible for WW1 altough I admit that it was not all responsible alone.



Of coures, after having lost 1.300.000 men in WW1, France wanted a guarantee that Germany would not be able to attack them again in the future, which is I think perfectly understandable.It's the politicians duty to make the country safe.
Of course after such sacrifices, hatred and emotions played a big role but were not predominant among the diplomats responsible for the treaty.

Had it been up to France and Belgium, the treaty would have been much harsher than it eventually was, and could well have made a war impossible for Germany in the coming 50-100 years, but of course the other allies, principally Britain didn't accept to have fought a war to stop german hegemony over Europe, just too change it into french hegemony over the continent.

I ask again what substantially would you have changed in the treaty in the situation of 1918.

 

Russia crtainly escalated the diplomatic situation, but it was Germany's "mobilization means war" philosaphy that turned a diplomatic incident (albeit a major one) into an all out war. Germany had litte reason to declare war on Russia and even less to declare war on France. They then invaded neutral Belgium with absolutely no justification whatsoever. It is certainly possible to say that Germany was not totally to blame for the tensions that helped to bring about war, but she and her allies must shoulder the bulk of the blame when war did break out

I think that is open to question. France wanted security from Germany and having been twice invaded by them in the previous fifty years its not an unreasonable demand! As France was clearly unable to take on Germany alone only a coalition of the three great western powers could guarentee French security, and Britain and the US would not give such a guarentee. In those circumstances the only option is to smash Germany so she becomes incapable of threatening France again in the forseeable future. which while arguably harsh is perfectly logical.

 

Castlelot wrote:

Charley wrote:

Whicl naturally leads one to ask;
How effective was the Treaty of Versaiiles in accomplishing that end?

 

When the Allies turned a blind eye to its terms being violated, totally inefective. Had the treaty been enforced, no WWII simple as that.

 

The Harshness of the treaty didnt cause war
bad enforcment did

 

Yes, but had it been up to Great Britain and the United States (or rather, Wilson) the treaty would have been much lighter on Germany. It could have gone both ways, but the way it actually went made nobody any happier; France didn't have the total destruction of Germany's potential that it wanted, and Germany didn't get to keep any of its dignity. Remember that the party that signed the Treaty for Germany was from then on hated and mistrusted, simply for accepting it for the nation.

Reparations payments have almost always led back to war, throughout history. The Romans provide some nice examples of this. Then there was the fact that the Germans were forced to give up their own defences against France west of the Rhine, as well as ground that had belonged to them for four centuries in Central Europe. Most of this wasn't about the actual territory being taken, but about the idea that an unbeaten army and nation laid down its arms to be berieved of its dignity like that. In the age of unbridled nationalism, the makers of the Treaty should have been aware of this.

 

In november 1918 Germany was as militarily beaten as a country possibly can be.
Later,Hitler and other right wing politicians created the so called "Dolchstosslegende", the legend that Germany had not lost the war in the field but had been "stabbed in the back" by jews and communists.
Thats of course total nonsense.

As was already pointed out, the reparations were not only a vital economic necessity, they were also totally justified.
Of course many people in Germany were not pleased about having to pay them, but instead of blaming Versailles for it, they should have blamed their governement that had started the whole thing in the first place and invaded it's neighbours.

Also the territories they lost were mostly populated by non-german peoples(where referenda were organised where the population was asked to whom they wished to belong to).

Also, Versailles did not surely lead to WW2, as there were many occasions in the 1930's where France (and Britain) could have stopped Hitler.(The most known being 1935 when Hitler ordered the rearmement, tand 1936 when he ordered the occupation of Rhenany).

I think that you got a point by saying that a problem of the treaty was that France/Belgium on one side were in favour of harsher terms, while the US and Britain(that could afford such a "luxury") were more moderate(Altough Britain wasn't moderate at all anymore as soon as it came to the german fleet+colonies).
But then again that is true for every peace treaty where a coalition is involved.Just look at the problems among the victorious coalition of 1945.

 

What people forget is that the Germans negotiated the surrendor of their unbeaten army. Whilst they would never win after the US joined the battle they were still a considerable force.

The germans approached Versaille with their head held high and with hopes that they would be able to neogtiate a reasoned settlement.

They didn't, they were shafted then humiliated but by then it was too late as the German armies had started to go home. They had to live with the deal.

It was this deal that spread the dissatisfaction within Germany and contributed to the complete and utter collapse of their economy.

This was the fertile ground that Hitler stepped into and manipulated for what he saw the greater good of Germany. Added to this was the fact that the consistant minor early gains he was got away with like restarting the army, stopping payments, entering the Ruhr etc only strengthed his will, position and popularity.

The causes of WW2 were in my eyes the agreement, which I can understand from Frances position, followed by the bad luck of Hitlers rise.

FNG

 

Germany was beaten, her army was being driven back and was crumbling - contrast the Hindenburg line being stormed in two days with the slaughter at Paschendale, the blockade was biting ever harder and civil order was beggining to break down. The armistace on November 1918 saved Germany from the destruction of 1945 but to argue that had Germany fought on the war would have ended in anything other than allied victory is absurd.

 

Absolutely true.
But it's also true that the average german did not know about that.
I think that had the german people been aware of:
- In what desperate situation their army was in 1918
- That it was their governement that was principally responsible for the war....than they wouldn't have seen the treaty as that harsh anymore.

But of course they weren't told all that.
Hindenburg and Luddendorf, who urged the governement "to ask for peace at any price before it's too late" in the fall of 1918, were later among the main critics of the governement for having done what they asked it to do.
Then came the whole propaganda where the german people was told how their unbeaten army and country had been humiliated....
Probably one of the main reasons why the allies choose to ask for unconditional surrender in WW2.

 

At this point I'd like to bung in my fact that the Germans imposed an equally galling & financially burdensome treaty upon France after the Franco-Prussian War. France paid up.

 

to blame germany for ww1 is wholly niave in the extreme.

The road to war and its eventual escalation into a wider european conflict is probably one of mistakes on all sides, and sheer niavity.

no country envisage the scale of the carnage to come or the length of the conflict.

I personally dont except that the versailles treaty was fair and just.
when the germans signed the armistice of nov 1918 it was on the basis of a negotaited peace settlement.
However in 1919 they were presented with a fait acomplit sign the treaty or the allies will resume hostilites. no negotaition- just take it or leave it!

in terms of reperation they are not comparible to what was imposed on the french in 1871, germany was expected to make payments until 1988!

in terms of territoral losses again parallels cannot be drawn to earlier conflicts, for example after the napoleonic wars france retained her 1792 borders. Alsace-lorraine was always going to be returned to France which was fair.

others areas were dealt with on the principle of self determination, the interesting thing here is that in a number of areas plebicites were held to see which country the local population wished to be apart of. In the polish areas of silesia and east prussia they voted to remain in germany even though the there was an ethinic majority of poles.

Trouble with self determination it applied to all countries except those on the "losing side" millions of germans were left out side the new german and austrian borders, if it had been followed to the letter the sudetenland would have been split between germany and austria and not been in czechoslovakia at all. terranto would have been split equally between austria and italy, danzig would have remained in germany, hungary would have been bigger than it was etc etc.

Also there was too much pandering to the french who wanted germany crippled, they even pushed for the rhineland to be part of france.
France desperatly wanted to humilate germany and eliminate any future threat by any means. Britain and Amercia felt what France wanted was too far but felt obliged to france for the destruction caused in their country etc to allow their influence to be too great!

The versailles treaty left the germans crippled by reparations defenceless against any attack and open to extreme parties like the nazis etc.

This is the reason it was never enforced because in particular the british felt the treaty to have been too harsh and felt some of the german claims of the mid 1930s to be fair.

thus i believe the treaty to have been a major factor in the road to war in 1939 as a politicains said at the time( dont remember who ) "this isnt a treaty that has been signed, but an armistice for 20 years"

 

That quote is from allied supreme commander Maréchal Ferdinand Foch and referred to the fact that from a french point of view the treaty wasn't harsh enough.