The War Guilt Clause was simple but seen as extremely harsh, Germany had to accept the blame for starting the war. They knew they were partly the cause of the war but also thought that there were a lot of other contributing factors to the lead up and start of the war and consequences over several years had been leading to the introduction of World War 1.
The major powers agreed, without consulting Germany, that Germany had to pay the reparations to the allies for the damages caused in the war. The exact figure was agreed in 1921, it was set at £6,600 million. Germany saw this as a way to crash the German economy and it would take years to rebuild it after crippling it so severely. The winning powers wanted this, to teach Germany a lesson and to impede them from attacking any country soon after the war.
Germany lost many territories and colonies as part of the Treaty of Versailles. Their overseas empire was eliminated this was a cause of many bad relations between Germany and Britain, who now mutually occupied these colonies after distributing it them and other winning powers. Germany was prohibited to form any alliances with Austria. With these terms many trade routes and opportunities were lost, another economically impairing move for Germany.
Germany’s armed forces were limited to just 100,000 men and soldiers had to be volunteers. This prevented Germany from having a big enough army to start an attack on a country. They were not allowed any armoured tanks, submarines or aircraft although they were granted 6 battle ships. The Rhineland became demilitarised. Germany saw this as very unfair as they could not defend themselves if an attack came from any country willing to seek revenge after the war.
Germany could only be invited to join the international police force of the League of Nations when it showed itself to be a peace loving country.
I don’t think the Treaty of Versailles was particularly fair on Germany, some of the terms wouldn’t have been allowed today and what some countries expected was too much. Germany was not involved in any of the negotiations so had no say in what would happen to the future of their country. The winning nations set out to economically trample Germany in the future, not leaving them with many options. They were treated so harshly because they were the defeated state. The fourteen points (national self determination) were not applied. The German national pride was diminished from the massive loss of territory and armament. Germany also felt that they hadn’t lost the war but only accepted the cease fire.
