WWII Documentary - 132 minutes
The peace settlement was established at the end of a long and exhausting war that cost more than eight million lives and, according to one estimate, about 260 billion - or put another way, more than six times the sum of the entire national debt accumulated over the world from the late 18th century to 1914.
When the press on Wilson's Fourteen Points was first reached Germany, the American peace program was rejected with indignation.
The expectation of both Allies and Central Powers was that war costs would largely be recovered losers Moreover, the two sides planned to exploit their victory by inflicting territorial losses and military limits to the enemy and confiscating a significant part of their economic and industrial resources.
Progressive Liberal Wilson However, such ambitions are not well agree with the current peace program developed in the United States during 1918, the Fourteen Points issued by the President of the United States in Congress in January 1918, and its following addresses represented an ambitious and idealistic offer by Woodrow Wilson to take the initiative on behalf of the United States and to provide moral leadership in the world in the negotiations that followed peace.
When the press on Wilson's Fourteen Points first reached Germany, the American peace program was indignantly rejected by conservatives as an imperialist conquest front and striking a note of victory that was barely suitable for unprecedentedly promising military situation in Germany in early 1918 striking contrast to the peace proposals of Wilson, the Germans reached an extremely severe treaty with Russia at Brest Litovsk in March 1918, and turned their attention to a final push all round to break the Allied lines on the Western Front.
But the victory did not materialize place in August 1918, the German High Command were facing defeat now Wilson's peace proposals were very appealing, compared to conditions that may be put forward by french and British leaders the High Command hastily summoned political leaders of the German Reichstag to put their weight behind a new civilian government of Prince Max von Baden, and agree to continue peace negotiations with Wilson based on fourteen The cynical calculation point was that a new civilian government would ensure a more lenient peace that would be offered to the German military leaders.
Lloyd George won a landslide victory with his offer to make the Germans pay While Wilson negotiated the terms of a ceasefire with German representatives, the Allied Powers were left waiting on the sidelines for the reluctance Wilson at this stage to consult the British and French leaders augur well for the peace process which inevitably involve complex political and territorial negotiations involving many countries was it ready to compromise with his critics in the United States.
There were many Republicans and even some Democrats leading that do not support the liberal Wilson's peace program.
There were many Republicans and even some Democrats leading that does not support the program of the liberal peace of Wilson, calling instead for a peace retaliation and armistice with Germany's unconditional surrender.
In the US midterm elections in November 1918, the American people voted for Wilson and his peace program, but for his Republican opponents, causing Senate Republican majority and the Republican majority in the House of Representatives.
Thus, serious doubts were raised even before the armistice was signed, and weeks before a peace conference could meet, whether a peace based on Wilson's Fourteen Points would be ratified by the US Senate.
This serious challenge to Wilson in the United States increased the determination of the British Prime Minister, Lloyd George, and the French Prime Minister Clemenceau, to advance the demands of their own electorates Lloyd George won a landslide election victory in Britain in December 1918, under the banner of charging the Germans French opinion was even more vehement in calling for security against future German aggression and reparations for all damage caused by the Germans in northern France.
The Great War ended November 11, 1918, the date when the Germans signed an armistice and agreed to peace talks based on the Fourteen Points Their interpretation of these points was extremely broad, encompassing plebiscites in Alsace and Lorraine and the German-Polish border to account for the appeal of Wilson for self-determination, and arguing that German Austrians, if they wished, should be allowed to unite with Germany.
German officials were quick to recognize that the principles of Wilson and the new diplomacy could be turned to the advantage of Germany, and used to justify territorial gains in Europe, even in the face of military defeat.
The Big Four, Lloyd George left, Orlando, Clemenceau and Wilson The scene was so for grueling peace talks, which began in Paris in early January 1919, the leaders of 32 countries, representing them three quarters of the world population, and many counselors and dozens of reporters descended on the French capital Passions was strong and he took time to impose order on the procedure.
After weeks of tortuous negotiations, peace was finally hammered out and presented to the Germans.
Discussions on the possible terms of peace were repeatedly interrupted by urgent political and military crises revolving around the renewal of the armistice with Germany, the threat of the spread of Bolshevism and ongoing fighting in Europe Eastern There was an attempted assassination of the French Prime Minister Clemenceau.
Both Lloyd George and Wilson had to return home midway through the conference to attend to the urgent parliamentary activity Orlando of Italy took in late April assault But after weeks of tortuous negotiations, a peace was finally hammered and presented to the Germans on May 7
Compared to the treaties that Germany had imposed defeated Russia and Romania in 1918, the Treaty of Versailles was quite moderate He stripped Germany of just over 13 percent of its territory, much of which, in the form of Alsace and Lorraine was returned to France It also reduced economic productivity in Germany by about 13 percent and its population of ten percent Germany lost all its colonies and large vessels merchants, 75 percent of its iron ore deposits and 26 percent of its coal and potash.
Germany had to pay for major repairs for civil damages because he was held responsible, and his allies, to provoke war with heavy casualties, however, a specific sum was not specified in the treaty, but be decided after the conference by a specially appointed reparation Commission in 1921, the sum of 6000 million has been set, but it was further reduced in the following years the army and the German navy were drastically reduced in size, the army of 100,000 volunteers longtime service, and the country was allowed to have an air force.
Despite these terms, Germany has maintained a strong economic position, industrial and land at the heart of Europe, with a strong and growing population of 66 million the peace agreement has left a potentially dominant position Europe, wounded but not seriously wounded this reflects the goal of the United States and the Allied powers in Paris, which was not to crush Germany or to break the new empire, but rather to contain the military power of the country .
German animated drawing Versailles Germany sent to the guillotine This was the establishment in Eastern Europe that most outraged the Germans, since the German army, but ultimately defeated in the west, had won the victory over the German leaders of the Eastern Front attacked the territorial losses to the new Polish state as the Polish corridor and Upper Silesia, the prohibition of Anschluss or union with Austria, and the integration of a large number of former Sudeten Germans Habsburg in the new state of Czechoslovakia as violations promises of Wilson.
Danzig was established as a free city under the League of Nations.
Because of their bitter protests, the port of Danzig, with its large on a half million German inhabitants, was created as a free city under the League of Nations rather than being transferred to Poland.
In addition, the population of Upper Silesia was to be the chance to vote in a referendum on the future they wished to remain in Germany or become part of the new Polish state.
Further revisions have also been incorporated in the Treaty, the Rhineland was to be occupied for 15 years, but the troops had to be withdrawn gradually to all planned five years Germany has made under the treaties The inhabitants of the Saar Basin were to offer a plebiscite after 15 years to determine whether they wished to return to Germany, joining France or remain under the supervision of the League of Nations and wanted to time it was assumed that Germany would be admitted to the newly created League of Nations.
German animated drawing Wilson will meet his master in hell inevitably, it was impossible to formulate a treaty that would both meet the needs of French and British populations punitive Treaty and comply with the German conceptions of a just and Wilsonian the Allies built the peace agreement on the assumption that if the Germans not like most words, they accept as the inevitable consequence of defeat.
But much of the population in Germany did not believe that their country had been honorably defeated on the battlefield They believed in rumors throughout Germany that the thrust of the victory of their valiant troops on the Western Front had been sabotaged by traitors and peace at home that had spread disaffection and revolution.
This stab in the back had prevented the valiant soldiers of securing the victory that was almost within reach and a treaty which not only confirmed the defeat of Germany but, in Article 231, has justified its expense claims punitive war in blaming the outbreak of war firmly on German shoulders, was cause fury Germany was a country that is considered to have been surrounded by France, Russia and Great Britain in 1914 and caused the war.
In the frenzied atmosphere of postwar politicians from all parties have agreed that the treaty, including its Guilt clause despised war, was vindictive, unjust and impossible to execute They portrayed as an unjust peace, and uses the progressive forces in Europe to help them revise.
Such tactics have been extremely successful in dividing the victorious coalition that defeated Germany and negotiated peace in a year, the Senate of the United States rejected the Treaty of Versailles and signed a separate peace with Germany, leaving Britain and France bitterly opposed on how to proceed Although British leaders now looking further revisions to the treaty in order to reconcile Germany, France demanded the strict application of the terms.
It was the total failure of the victorious powers to work closely after 1919 to contain German power, rather than the specific terms of the peace agreement, which was one of the factors that contributed to the emergence of a second world war 20 years later.
The Origins of the Second World War in Europe by P Bell Longman, 1986.
The Treaty of Versailles edited by M Boemeke, G Feldman E Glaser Cambridge UP, 1998.
Peacemakers by Margaret MacMillan John Murray, 2001.
Regulation of Versailles by a Lentin Historical Association, 1991.
British Land and Power and Allied policy on the borders of Germany, 1916-1919 by David and Charles H Nelson, 1971.
The peace of Versailles in Paris settlement with a pound Macmillan 1991.
The Treaty of Versailles in full, of the First World War Archive One of the documents.
A wealth of information about the First World War and the issues that dominate the peace conference.
Trenches on the Web A large amount of the First World War material.
Dr. Ruth Henig is a lecturer in modern history at Lancaster University, and author of several books and pamphlets on the international history of the 20th century.
BBC World History Wars Versailles and Peacemaking, history, world, Versailles.