Treaty of Versailles

The Paris Peace Conference opened nearly ten weeks after the German armistice; on January 18, 1919. Though 32 nations had seats at the conference, the major decisions were reserved for the great powers – the USA, Britain, France, Italy and Japan. President Woodrow Wilson and his secretary of State, along with the premiers of the other four great powers constituted the Council of Ten; after this there was a Council of Four (The U.S, British, French and Italian leaders with occasional appearances by the Japanese); then, a council of five (The representatives of the great powers remaining after Wilson’s return to Washington in June 1919. The drafting of the covenant of the League of Nations was given priority on the conferences agenda. The German question would be considered following agreement on the League of Nations that culminated with The Treaty of Versailles.

The Cost of World War One

The Allies and Associated powers are estimated to have mobilized more than forty two million men in World War One and to have lost more than five million lives. The Central Powers, with Turkey and Bulgaria, mobilized nearly twenty three million and lost nearly three million, four hundred thousand lives. The direct war expenditure of the allies was estimated approximately at $145,388,000,000 (including British, U.S. and French loans of $19,697,000,000 to other belligerents); the Central powers spent $63,018,000,000 (Including German loans of $2,375,000,000)

These figures take no account of the wounded combatants (More than twenty one million in all) or to the indirect cost of the war, which includes billions of dollars lost on property, ships, cargo, loss of production, losses impaired on neutrals and losses impaired in war relief.

Terms of the Treaty

On May 7, 1919, at Versailles, the draft of a treaty was presented to a delegate summoned from Germany. His protests and Germanys subsequent remonstrance’s had little effect, and on June 28, in the Hall of Mirrors, the treaty was signed. Ratified by Germany on July 9, it came into effect on January 10, 1920.

Part i of the Treaty consisted of the League Covenant. Parts ii and iii stipulated the cession of three small areas to Belgium; the release of Luxembourg from German command; the demilitarization of all German territory west of the Rhine River and of a 30 mile strip east of it; a provisional regime for the Saarland; the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France; recognition of Austria’s independence; the cession of most of West Prussia to Poland and of Poznan, together with plebiscites to determine the frontier in Upper Silesia and the East Prussian districts of Allenstein and Marienwerder; special regimes for Memel and Danzig; recognisation of Czechoslovakia, including Silesian areas to be taken from Germany; a plebiscite in Schleswig to determine Germany’s frontier with Denmark; the razing of Helgolands defenses; and the abrogation of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty.

Part iv deprived Germany of all its rights and interests overseas. Part v restricted both the manpower and the equipment needed for Germany’s army and navy; prohibited conscription; dissolved the grand general staff; and forbade any kind of German airforce.

Part vi dealt with prisoners of war and with graves. Parts vii and viii prescribed the indictment, before a special tribunal, of the former German emperor for a “Supreme Offense against international morality and the sanctity of the treaties”; the bringing to trial, with the German governments collaboration, of other persons whom the Allies might accuse of war crimes; and the payment, by Germany, within 30 years, of compensation for loss and damage sustained by the allies throughout the war.

Parts ix and x adjusted the German debt as of 1914 with respect to some of the territorial cessions imposed but exempted the new powers from liability with respect to Alsace-Lorraine and to the formerly German overseas colonies; established that the victorious allied would be granted favourable commercial conditions for trade with Germany; and authorized the confiscation of Germans’ private property abroad for the reparation account.

Parts xi and xii gave provisional freedom of transit across Germany to the aircraft of the treaty powers; restored prewar “free zones” in certain German ports; and prescribed international control of the River Elbe, River Oder, River Nieman, River Danube and the River Rhine and the opening of the Kiel Canal to the ships of all nations at peace with Germany. Part xiii established the International Labour organisation.

Part xiv imposed “guarantees” for the execution of the treaty: Allied or associated forces were to have the right to occupy Germany west of the Rhine and certain bridgeheads across the River for 15 years. If Germany observed the Treaty, however, they would evacuate the Cologne bridgehead and adjacent territory after only five years and the Coblenz bridgehead after 10, retaining only the Mainz and Kehl bridgeheads; but if Germany defaulted the terms, they might retain or reoccupy the entire or part of the territory even after the supposed 15 years. Also included in Part xiv was the provision that German troops should be withdrawn from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania at the Allies behest – which depended on their relations with Soviet Russia. Part xv pre-empted Germanys assent to the peacemakers forthcoming dispositions.

German discontent

The seeds of trouble for the next twenty years were sown in those articles of the Treaty that Germany had the most obvious grounds for resenting, whether as unduly harsh or offensive to national pride. Parts ii, iii, v, vii and viii were richest in such discontent. The special regime for the free city of Danzig irritated both the Germans and the Poles.

Germany however had some cause for satisfaction at the treaty’s prescription of plebiscites to determine the Polish-German frontier in East Prussia and Upper Silesia. The East Prussian vote, taken in the Allenstein and Marienwerder districts, was taken in July 1920, during the crisis of the Russo-Polish War, and the result was strongly in Germany’s favour. In Silesia, however, the vote was taken on March 20, 1921, two days after the Treaty of Riga between Poland and Soviet Russia, and gave results that were subsequently interpreted as pro-Polish in France and pro-German in Britain. The Poles, tired of the British attitude, occupied three fifths of the disputed area in May, and three months of Anglo-French polemic ensued. Finally, the Council of the League of Nations achieved compromise, splitting Silesia between the Poles and Germans based on voting patterns for parts of the province.

Bibliography

• Albrecht-Carrie, Rene. Italy at the Paris Peace Conference (1938) online edition
• Ambrosius, Lloyd E. "Woodrow Wilson and George W. Bush: Historical Comparisons of Ends and Means in Their Foreign Policies," Diplomatic History, 30 (June 2006), 509–43. online at Blackwell Synergy; also excerpt online
• Ambrosius, Lloyd E. Woodrow Wilson and the American Diplomatic Tradition: The Treaty Fight in Perspective (1990) excerpt and text search
• Andelman, David A. A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today (2007) popular history that stresses multiple long-term disasters caused by Treaty. excerpt and text search
• Bailey, Thomas A. Wilson and the Peacemakers: Combining Woodrow Wilson and the Lost Peace and Woodrow Wilson and the Great Betrayal (1947) online edition
• Birdsall, Paul. Versailles twenty years after (1941) well balanced
• Boemeke, Manfred F., Gerald D. Feldman, and Elisabeth Glaser, eds. The Treaty of Versailles: A Reassessment after 75 Years (Publications of the German Historical Institute) (2006), the major scholarly reassessment
• Clements, Kendrick, A. Woodrow Wilson: World Statesman (1999) excerpt and text search
• Cooper, John Milton. Breaking the Heart of the World: Woodrow Wilson and the Fight for the League of Nations (2001) 454pp excerpt and text search
• Greene, Theodore P. Ed. Wilson at Versailles (1957), excerpts from scholars online edition
• Keynes, John Maynard, The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1920) famous criticism by leading economist full text online
• Knock, Thomas J. To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order (1995) excerpt and text search
• Lederer, Ivo J. The Versailles Settlement--Was It Foredoomed to Failure? (1960) excerpts from scholars online edition
• Levin, Jr., N. Gordon Woodrow Wilson and World Politics: America's Response to War and Revolution (1968) excerpt and text search
• Link, Arthur S. Wilson the Diplomatist: A Look at His Major Foreign Policies (1957) online edition
• Macmillan, Margaret. Peacemakers: The Paris Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War (2002), 538pp; a standard scholarly history of Versailles treaty
• Macmillan, Margaret, and Richard Holbrooke. Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World (2003) influential study excerpt and text search
• Mayer, Arno J., Politics and Diplomacy of Peacemaking: Containment and Counter-revolution at Versailles, 1918-1919 (1967)
• Newton, Douglas. British Policy and the Weimar Republic, 1918-1919 (1997). 484 pgs.
• Schwabe, Klaus. Woodrow Wilson, Revolutionary Germany, and Peacemaking, 1918-1919: Missionary Diplomacy and the Realities of Power (1985) online edition
• Walworth, Arthur. Wilson and His Peacemakers: American Diplomacy at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 (1986)online edition
• Watson, David Robin. Georges Clemenceau: A Political Biography (1976) 463 pgs. online edition

See also

• David Lloyd George
• Woodrow Wilson

External Links

• Full Text of the Treaty