The Treaty of Versailles

A treaty ends the First World War

Fresh from signing the armistice to end the First World War in November 1918, representatives from the victor nations met in Paris in early 1919 to lay the conditions for a lasting peace. Excluding the Germans from their negotiations, Britain, France and the USA quickly decided that not only were Germany and its allies responsible for the outbreak of the war, but that they should be punished accordingly. As a result, Germany would be forced to cede around one-seventh of its territory, losing areas with large non-German populations, such as Alsace-Lorraine, West Prussia, Poznan, the Memelland and parts of Silesia. Germany would also lose control of the predominantly German-speaking city of Danzig, which would be established as a “free city”, and all of its overseas colonies. The treaty also required Germany to disband its navy and air force and maintain only a small army, which would be forbidden heavy and modern weaponry. The Rhineland was to be put under French occupation and Germany would be issued with a large bill for reparations, the size of which would be determined later.

Baulking at these conditions – especially the contentious issue of German war guilt – the German government signed only under protest to prevent a complete military occupation. Large sections of the German population never accepted what they viewed as the dictated terms of an unjust and humiliating treaty. The fact that representatives of the new system of government had actually signed it enabled right-wing parties to blame the new republic for selling out the German nation. Not only did this destabilize the young German democracy, but in the words of the French Marshal Foch, it made the Treaty of Versailles resemble “less a peace treaty than an armistice for 20 years”.