Another condition of Britain, France and the USA set out was to take away some of Germanys land and their colonies. It is clear that Germany suffered huge territorial losses. The provinces of Alsace and Lorraine returned to France; parts of Schleswig were ceded to Denmark; to the east, new countries were created to roughly match the ethnic balance of the area and finally, 'The Polish Corridor' was created which gave the Poles a broad strip of land that connected it to the sea - and consequently separated Eastern Prussia from the rest of Germany.
It was not just in Europe that German suffered territorial losses. All of Germany's overseas colonies were annexed by the Allies, either to become colonies or areas that were managed until independence could be maintained alone. In total, Germany lost over one millions square miles of land (28,000 of which had previously formed part of European Germany) and 6 million subjects. I think that some of this is fair as some of the land the majority of people were from a nationality other than German, but it is unfair how they were expected to pay this huge bill when they had had rich sources of income taken away in their land.
The third part of the condition was the restrictions made to Germanys military. They were only allowed 100,000 men, 6 battleships and were banned from an Air Force and having submarines. This could be seen as fair as France needed to be safe from German revenge, but also unfair as before the war France and Germany competed on the size of their army’s, and France could feel they can look down towards Germany’s small army unlike their army made up of over 1,000,000 men.
The final condition that affected Germany was that they received full blame for the start of WW1. This is fair because in 1914 Germany declared war on France and Russia, causing the war to spark off this declaration, Germany also invaded Belgium, which then led Britain and France to declare to war on Germany. This could be perceived as unfair though as Germany were not the ones who declared “the great war” which is what WW1 was known as then.
Germany was not expecting to receive such a harsh trial as “the Kaiser” who was the old ruler had gone, and they now had a peaceful democratic system. The effect the blame had on Germany was that the whole of Germany’s population suffered a stigma.
To conclude, whilst it may be seen as correct that Germany was made to repay the countries affected by the first world war, the requirements of the Treaty of Versailles was extremely punitive, and instead of helping to reconcile Germany with its enemies, so much damage was caused to Germany, its economy, and its people, that without hindsight it was probably only a matter of time before someone rebelled against the decision of Britain, France and the USA. Germany was forced to accept these conditions as opposed to agreeing to them. This shows it was a very one sided deal. Germany were also not invited to join the League of Nations, so they were outcast and very isolated from the rest of Europe. And history shows what happened next…
Stacey Heywood
