The terms also stated that Germany had to give away land to five of her neighbouring countries, the country itself then was split into two sides. One side was to be governed by the German’s and the other side which included the areas Danzig, the Saar and Memel, were to be governed by the League of Nations for a period of time, later the people who lived in those areas would be allowed to vote for whether they wanted to be part of Germany or not, however the vote was never carried out. Wilson did not approve of the way that Germany had been divided, as he believed himself that all German people who speak German, who live in a German culture, who are used to being ruled by the German government should stay together in one group, not be split up without being given any choice. Wilson wanted for the subject people to freely have a say in what they all personally thought about their country or colony. The coalmines in the Saar Valley, one of Germany’s main sources of income, were given to the French.
Another of Wilson’s points said that he wanted disarmament in every country; he wanted the level of armaments to be reduced. Yet in the Treaty of Versailles, the only country that got stripped of its weapons was Germany. The German force was reduced to nearly nothing, they were allowed an army of 10,000 men and a navy with no more than six battleship. No air force or submarines (U-boats) were allowed at all. So the army had been decreased by quite a bit from 4 million men to just 10,000, this basically just about let them defend their own country. But the point was that the terms meant that the drop in the number of army-men had to be decreased quite severely, as German soldiers used build up the German society – some used to have the same status as business men or maybe even higher- so the military culture had been broken up, as the number in men and weapons had been profoundly shifted. Nevertheless I don’t really think that reducing the German military was greatly unfair as they could have been left defenceless, but they weren’t, I mean they, the Germans had already shown how they could misuse their weapons by starting the war. The western part of Germany, the Rhineland was also then made into a demilitarised zone where no weapons or soldiers were allowed anywhere near there. The demilitarised zone included all of the land which was west of the River Rhine and an area 50 kilometres wide on the east bank. In addition the Allies were allowed to keep an army on the west bank for fifteen years. So the Germans got to keep their Rhineland but they just couldn’t put their troops there. This must have pleased Clemenceau as he was worried that the Germans could invade France using the Rhineland as a corridor into France.
Clause 231 of the Treaty, otherwise known as the war guilt clause, said that Germany had to accept the blame for starting the ‘Great War’, and because she was guilty of starting the war, Germany had to pay reparations - to pay for all the damage that was caused by and through the war - to the Allies, but mainly to France. The exact amount that was to be paid was going to be decided by a special committee. France wanted 200 billion dollars from the Germans to pay for the damage; however Wilson was horrified at the sum of money that the French demanded as he thought that the maximum cost would have been 22 billion dollars, the French wanted almost ten times as more than what the Americans thought would be maximum sum. The British thought that the cost should have been 120 billion, so they weren’t as extreme as the French, but they were more extreme than the Americans.
The League of Nations, which Wilson had proposed for in his Fourteen Points, was only one of the full points that Wilson had managed to achieve on the Treaty of Versailles. The League of Nations was setup to help preserve the future of world peace, it was meant to be there to make sure that things didn’t get too out of hands between all the different nations.
All in all, there were not many similarities between Wilson’s Fourteen Points and the Treaty of Versailles apart from the existence of the League of Nations. There weren’t many similarities but there were quite a few differences between the two documents. Not many of Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points had managed to fully make there presence in the Treaty of Versailles, for example, the Wilson said that he wanted for the level of armaments to reduced in every country, however the only country that had been virtually disarmed was Germany. In fact, I say that the Treaty of Versailles mainly went against nearly most of what Wilson had said that he wanted in his Points. But then again, why should the Treaty have followed what Wilson, the American wanted anyway? After all what did the Americans understand as they hadn’t been in the war as long as the countries in the Allied side had, they hadn’t suffered as much as the British and especially the French had. Actually, compared to the Allied side it wouldn’t seem as if they had suffered at all, they only lost a few thousand men, whereas nearly half of the French army had been wiped out just in that one battle that they had. So one of the reasons why the Treaty of Versailles differed by quite a bit compared to Wilson’s Points was because they felt that what Wilson wanted was out of sympathy for the other countries, as he didn’t understand what it felt like to be one of those countries at war or in battle, as much. Whilst Wilson looked as if he was trying to sympathise with the other countries, the Allies were looking for revenge on Germany to make them pay back for what they had cost them, their country, their people and their world.