Was the Treaty of Versailles Just?

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Was the Treaty of Versailles Just?

By Richard Ward  

        Following the Armistice of November 1918, the Paris Peace Conference at Versailles brought together the Allied powers to decide upon the finer points of the agreement set out at the Armistice. Each representative had different priorities and these conflicted at times, making the acquisition of a peace settlement all the more difficult. Some aimed to simply punish Germany for starting the war, others set out to cripple Germany to such an extent that he could never present a threat to the surrounding countries. Some misguided representatives went to Versailles with the belief that it was purely a way of rewarding the Allied countries for winning the war. The objective of Versailles was, in fact, none of these. The aim of Versailles was to establish a workable and just treaty that would ensure lasting peace in Europe. The three major powers at Versailles were the USA (Wilson), Great Britain (Lloyd George) and France (Clemenceau). At the beginning of Versailles, Italy considered itself a major player. This misconception was put to rest as soon as the big three told the Italians that Fiume would not be made a part of Italy.

The three countries each felt differently about what should be done to Germany, and their representatives were obliged to demonstrate their country's feelings as well as negotiating a workable treaty. Sir Eric Geddes, a minister in Lloyd George's government at the time of the peace settlement, summed up the mood of the country when he said:

"…I have personally no doubt that we will get everything that you can squeeze out of a lemon, and a bit more…"

Geddes was, of course, being slightly populist in his comment but was under obligation to maintain support for Lloyd George (who was also wearing two hats at the time). In the eyes of the British in 1919, Germany had caused a war that had resulted in just under a million dead and two million wounded and missing. They wanted a hard, punishing agreement that would make Germany pay. Yet by the early 1920s, anti-German feelings had receded and the British became sympathetic to the German people. At Versailles, Lloyd George argued for a peace that would be 'stern, but not vindictive', as well as one that would protect British interests overseas. In truth, Lloyd George did not want excessive reparations because as John Maynard Keynes pointed out, the only way Germany could pay excessive reparations would be to compete with the British export economy; which would not be good in the long term. What Lloyd George had to say at Versailles differed from what he said in Parliament and what he said around Britain.

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        The attitude of France was somewhat more hard-lined. A million and a half French had been killed, and four million wounded or missing. Clemenceau was determined to prevent a repetition of the Great War, and believed the way to do this was to take everything that he could get from Germany in the way of land and reparations. He also suggested that Germany should be broken up into several individual states. That would almost conclusively place any further aggression out of the question. France had suffered the most out of the war; Clemenceau and France believed that that warranted the ...

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