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The Treaty of Versailles When the fighting ended on November 11th 1918, representatives of 27 nations, together with delegates from the British Dominions, who had declared war on Germany (not all of them had actually taken part in the fighting) met at Versailles, near Paris, to decide what was to happen to the beaten enemy. The four most important men at the conference, and the ones who really made most of the decisions, were the Prime Ministers of Britain, France and Italy, Mr. Lloyd George, M. Clemenceau and Signor Orlando, and the President of the United States, Mr. Wilson. The Germans were not allowed to send any representatives to put their side of the case—a fact which was to cause a great deal of trouble before many years had passed. The conference, which began in 1919, decided that Germany was responsible for the war, and must be punished for causing so much damage. She was ordered to pay large sums of money and to give her merchant ships and much of her coal production to the allies who had won the war. In all, the cost to Germany was about six thousand six hundred million pounds, over half of which was to be paid to France who had suffered the most damage. Of course, this sum was impossibly large and very little of it was ever paid. Next, all of Germany's colonies were taken from her and placed by the League of Nations in the care of Britain, France, Belgium, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. These countries were not given the colonies as possessions, but were made responsible for keeping them in order and developing them into modern states. In case Germany should ever try to start another war, she was forbidden to have any submarines or military aeroplanes, which were considered the most dangerous weapons. She was allowed to keep only a very small army, and a navy of six battleships of 10,000 tons and some smaller vessels—just enough to keep law and order.
The new countries of Europe The conference then came to what was considered the most important item—the re-shaping of the map of Europe. In the west, the two 'counties' of Alsace and Lorraine, which Germany had taken from France in the war of 1870 were given back. Belgium and Denmark were also given a small area of Germany. But it was in the east, between Germany and her Austrian ally and Russia that the greatest changes took place. Two completely 'new' states (Czecho-Slovakia and Yugo-Slavia) were created, and one (Poland) which had been swallowed up by Germany and Russia nearly a hundred years earlier, was given its independence again. Three small states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, were established between 1920 and 1922 from parts of the old Russian Empire on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. As far as possible the statesmen tried to make for the different races of this part of the world—Poles, Czechs, Slovaks and Serbs—who had lived for so long under foreign rule, their own country. Poland was created from the Polish-speaking parts of Russia and Germany, and by other treaties Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were formed from land formerly belonging to Austria and Hungary. The vast majority of the inhabitants of these 'new' countries were Poles or Czechs or Slovaks or Serbs as the case might be, but as for the sake of convenience and defence the frontiers of the states had to follow as far as possible a river or a range of mountains, sometimes a small number of German-speaking people had to be included. It was impossible, for example, to make sure that every person living in Czechoslovakia was a Czech or a Slovak, and these 'minority' groups of Germans disliked being under the rule of another government which spoke a different language and had different customs. They did not think that the Czechs and the Poles had been in an even worse plight for a much longer time. A few years later, the German government, after the Nazis had come to power, accused the Polish and Czech governments of ill-treating the German inhabitants, and made this an excuse for taking back part of the land they had lost. This was one of the main causes of World War 2. Note how the new countries formed a barrier between the U. S. S. R. and Western Europe
The Treaty of Versailles made the Germans very angry, especially as they had no representatives at the conference. Later on they argued that they had never agreed to the conditions and as the treaty had been forced on them, they need not obey it. Nevertheless, the men who drew it up thought they had done a very good job indeed and had made sure there would be peace in Europe for a very long time. They could not see at the time that the treaty was to be one of the causes of an even worse world war.
QUESTIONS 1. Who were the men who made the real decisions at the conference of Versailles? Why do you think these men claimed the right to do so? 2. What annoyed Germany most about the conference? 3. Do you think it was wrong to refuse to allow anyone to put Germany's case to the conference? (Think of what happens in a court of law, even if the prisoner pleads guilty.) 4. Why was Germany unable to pay the large sum demanded? 5. Why were the members of the conference anxious to make a string of `new' countries from north to south across Europe? 6. What difficulties are likely to arise if a 'new' country is made by taking away and joining up parts of existing countries? 7. What were the ideas behind the creation of the new states of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, and the re-creation of Poland? 8. The map of the north-eastern corner of France shows the frontier with Germany. It shows the two 'counties' of Alsace and Lorraine which Germany took from France in 1870, so that in 1914 the boundary between the two countries ran along the line marked with crosses. Noting particularly the deep, wide river Rhine, why do you think the French were especially anxious to have these two 'counties' back again? 9. Which parts of the Treaty of Versailles most upset countries and laid the foundation of another world war?
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