Treaty of Versailles

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Evaluate the proposition that the “Treaty of Versailles was a harsh peace”.

To officially end the First World War, a peace treaty named the Treaty of Versailles was signed at Versailles on June 28 1919. This peace treaty was signed after the war had stopped and was the one of the most dominant and imperative peace treaties of the fiver others to conclude the War. It is disputed that the Treaty of Versailles was an insensitive concord; however this termination is seen erroneously by several people. Germany was left in sorrow as a result of the harsh result of the Treaty of Versailles as well as the greediness of the Allies. The big four; Woodrow Wilson of the USA, Georges Clemenceau of France, David Lloyd George of England and Vittorio Emanuele Orlando of Italy were left responsible for negotiating the treaty. It is supposed that the leaders resulted in such a harsh treaty because of the conflicting, greedy ideas and the sense of demilitarising the country. The treaty was known as the “War Guilt Clause,” and Germany was not invited to the negotiations of the Treaty of Versailles due to their recently defeated power resulting in a very ruthless peace treaty.  

The treaty formally placed all blame for the war on Germany and imposed Germany with reparations payments. German Colonies were divided amongst allies, the right bank of the Rhine was permanently demilitarised, the German army was reduced to a maximum of 100,000 soldiers as was the German navy and Germany was forbidden to build major weapons of aggression. It is thought by some that that the German dissatisfaction with the treaty may have caused the rise of the Nazi movement. In 1931 the reparations payments were suspended and in 1935 Chancellor Adolf Hitler cancelled the military clauses of the treaty and in 1936 began the remilitarization of the Rhineland.

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World War one saw one of the largest war mobilisations in history, in the years between 1914 and 1918 over 60 million European soldiers from different sides were mobilised. Of this amount, fifteen million soldiers were badly injured, eight million were killed and seven million were disabled, five million civilians also died.

Germany had an alliance with Austria – Hungary when the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated; Austria declared war against Serbia and so brought Germany into the war as well. The enemy was France, USA, England and Russia. Germany attacked France and Belgium in August 1914. On ...

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