One could suggest that the treaty not being harsh enough created many problems but the situation the nations were put in post World War 1 was not as easy one, to eradicate Germany as a power completely or to console there enemy and try and be overly lenient with Germany. In a situation where France wanted to destroy Germany and the USA wanted to be lenient one could say the treaty was not a bad one or one that created problems but the only plausible one that could arise at the time. There is no doubt that Germany’s actions pre war were little but crucial in the starting of the war, for instance its alliance with Austria Hungary and its design’s over Europe. Germany’s post war plans if they had been victories would have been much worse than that of Allies legislations of Germany borders and territory. Yet dividing Germany land into separate states where many Germans still lived was bound to enrage all Germans and solve essentially nothing. It seems that the treaty did not have many options, it needed to punish Germany in some way. Yet article 231 the war guilt clause solely blamed only Germany for the starting of the war. This was unfair due to the fact that Britain and France were partly responsible. Even then it should not really be the responsibility of the new German Government to account for the Government in power before hand. I pose that on one hand the treaty of Versailles was a compromise and it was only its manipulation by the Nazi’s that lead to the rise of Hitler not the treaty itself therefore it was not problems that the treaty created but problems which were already there post and pre war. There was already a tradition of German Nationalism and the 1919 depression also played a large part in the rise of Hitler and Nazi’s in post war Germany.
You can neither overlook the reasons why the nations did not completely destroy Germany, as some pose this would have been a much easier and more sensible solution. Yet all three nations had in mind the threat of extremist parties taking over Germany, they had already see the acts of 1917 in Russia. A left wing socialist group led by the works of Karl Marx (socialist philosopher and seen as the creator of Communism as a Political stance) had seized power during the chaos engulfing Russia following the fall of the Tsarist regime. They did not want Germany to be vulnerable to the threat of Communism. Though other considerations obviously took priority.
On the other hand any Treaty or actions that try to recreate borders and distinctions between countries and areas never work due to wide spread differentiating people’s on land’s, it was very naive of the Big three to presume this would work, Wilson’s 14 points although more lenient to Germany still posed just as many territorial changes as the treaty although they were slightly less severe.. This recreation of false distinctions between countries was a down point of the treaty especially when the powers would not uphold what they had laid down this inevitably would cause problems in post war Germany as these kinds of actions had done before throughout the world. USA and Britain were less likely to hold up and stand by the treaty due to the common agreement that is was seen as too harsh in the first place. If all the nations would have been willing to uphold the treaty, for example stopping Germany going into the sedated lands and stopping paying reparations, could it have worked. But if you take the view that because the terms were too harsh even if it would have been upheld it would not have been effective.
I pose that due to lack of determination from Britain and the USA the treaty fell into disrepute. Although all countries were not satisfied with the treaty it was a form of compromise and all nations involved should have pledged to act on what was laid down within the treaty. However the treaty did not suffice to any of the nation’s demands or ideals for a post war Germany so therefore in that respect a problem was created in the sense that the nations were less willing to uphold it, as shown by America’s abdication from the treaty. This failure to uphold what the treaty had said was influential to Germany defying the treaty and leading to a situation where Germany refused to pay reparations, this without a doubt could be seen as a creation of a problem within post war Europe that was created by the treaty. Yet one could argue that the reparations fee was set so ridiculously high (£6,600,000,000) Germany could not plausibly pay reparations.
To say that in the treaty being to harsh it was able to be used by Hitler and the Nazi’s would not be that absurd. To Germans the treaty seemed overly harsh and a deliberate attempt to humiliate Germany and all German people. Some people viewed the “Blank Cheque” (the nations could set reparations at a much later date when they had decided how much they wanted Germany to pay) was a deliberate attempt to humiliate Germany further. This was excellent ammunition for the Nazi’s and the Treaty was one of Hitler’s main talking points at all Nazi’s rallies. Also because the reparations were so damaging to the German economy it gave radical movements more support. In the treaty not being harsh enough to cripple Germany as a power but to still blame her most harshly in a less physical sense , such as the war guilt clause and the limitation of her army, the treaty seemed to leave Germans more mentally anguished than physically. It was proposed this would lead to something much worse years after the treaty and it truly did. The treaty left Germany feeling bitter, she was free enough an eventually strong enough to take revenge on the treaty, and although her army was massively restricted, no air force and a very limited number of troops, Hitler and the Nazi’s quickly build up a massive military force without any resistance from the allies.
In saying that the treaty of Versailles was a complete failure and created all Europe’s post war problems would be a massive overstatement, to say it was merely the best the Nations could do with the given situation and that all the problems which arose were little to do with the treaty would be an understatement. The real answer lies somewhere in between the two. The options of the Nations when creating the treaty were small but in being naive and not thinking forward to what certain clauses of the treaty might bring about they created problems. Yet no one could anticipate the rise of Hitler and the Nazi’s in Germany and although the treaty aided them in their rise it was one of many factors that lead to the rise of the Nazi party in post Versailles Germany. In conclusion the treaty created a lot of problems some avoidable, some not, its resources were small yet its dealing with its resources was poor. Yet when the nations wanted such polar opposites for a post war Germany and Europe in general it is expected that some problems could and would arise. Keynes said post the signing of the treaty that “The Treaty by overstepping the limits of the possible, has in practice settled nothing”.
