The Treaty of Versailles also charged Germany with the task of paying heavy reparations. The treaty set up a reparations committee that would meet sometime in 1921 to determine reparations for Germany to pay. Until then, Germany would pay $5,000,000,000 due May 1, 1921.
The economic strain put on Germany was probably the single most important factor in increasing hostility of the Germans towards Britain and France. The Germans by 1921 had paid off almost half of the $5,000,000,000 charged by Versailles. Then the reparations committee finally met and determined that Germany should pay another $25,000,000,000, plus other costs, bringing the total up to $32,500,000,000 to be paid by 1963! This demand, however, was ridiculous. Germany had hardly enough money to pay the entire original fee. In 1918, the German Reichsbank had only $577,089,500 dollars. This demand would crush the German economy, and many experts predicted it could even cause the starvation of the German people. Leading economist of the time John Maynard Keynes said of this, “The policy of reducing Germany to servitude for a generation, of degrading the lives of millions of human beings, and of depriving a whole nation of happiness should be abhorrent and detestable ... Nations are not authorized, by religion or by natural morals, to visit on the children of their enemies the misdoings of parents or rulers.” Very ironically, Keynes made this observation in a book in 1920, a year before the reparations committee officially added on the new $25,000,000,000 fine!
Not only were Britain and France overly vindictive in assessing these reparations, but they were also shortsighted in thinking they would derive anything beneficial out of it. Basically, Britain and France demanded all of Germany's money, yet they also took away all territory from Germany that could produce this money. By taking away Germany's colonies, they, in effect, eliminated all of Germany's investments and assets in their Colonial power. Future income and industry generated from these colonies would not be there for Germany. More devastating was taking away Germany's coal-producing territories. Germany, according to 1913 figures, used 139,000,000 tons of coal to enable its railroads, utilities, house-fuel, agriculture, etc. The provinces of Alsace-Lorraine, the Saarland, and Upper Silesia accounted for 60,800,000 of those tons, all of which was taken away from Germany. More than half of Germany's coal was to be taken away, with not enough left to power the heavily populated industrial country. With German industry completely destroyed, there was no practical way for them to pay Britain and France.
Although not allowed to participate in the oral negotiations, Germany had made several counter proposals dealing with the territorial adjustments and the reparations. Germany was willing to give up Alsace-Lorraine, the province of Posen, and Northern Schleswig. They also agreed to pay in full the reparations, but wanted to have their economy preserved by retaining their merchant fleet, and keeping their colonies. The Allies immediately censored these proposals, probably so they could not rouse sympathy for the German side. The proposals were not released until June 17th of 1919, only eleven days before the treaty was signed. In retrospect, many from Britain and France regretted not having agreed with or at least considered this counter proposal. In 1928, a Paris newspaper showed a picture of the German head delegate Count Brockdorff-Rantzau, saying, “The man who offered us 100 milliard gold marks at Versailles, which we unluckily refused.” Germany realized that there was no way they could pay the reparations if their industrial territories, such as the Saar Basin, and their colonies were taken away. Unfortunately, the Allies did not see this. With the counter-proposals denied, Germany's only other option was to resort to printing more money. This would cause massive inflation, further devastating the German economy. In 1918, there were seven German Marks to the United States Dollar. In 1923, 4,210,500,000,000 Marks equalled the dollar! Germany's last economic resort had been disastrous.
German aggression was greatly aroused by the ridiculous and often mistaken territorial adjustments made by Britain and France. One such incident was in the transfer of German territory to Poland. The allies had determined that the territory of Allenstein, in the eastern part of Germany should be given to Poland. The German delegation sent a counter-proposal stating that Allenstein had a large German population, and the Polish population was miniscule. Clemenceau answered this proposal by saying, “It is difficult to understand the objections raised by the German delegations ... According to the best of our information there exists in the Government of Allenstein a considerable Polish majority.” When a plebiscite was actually held there, 97.9% of the population voted to be part of Germany, with the remaining 2.1% wanting to join with Poland.
Although Allenstein was eventually granted to Germany, the main problem is obvious. The Allies postponed other plebiscites in Upper Silesia, most likely to prevent a similar setback from occurring. Germany had a significantly greater population than Poland in almost every territory taken away from them, and the allies probably knew this. There is no greater way of creating animosity than taking masses of people from their country? The Allies were very ignorant in this case, ignoring the fact that they were brewing hatred all throughout Germany by taking territories that were almost 100% German away from Germany. This incident clearly showed that Clemenceau was out for revenge, not seeking true peace. For France, the settlement was in reaction to not only 1914, but also more importantly 1871.
Not all of the Allies were against Germany in this manner. Woodrow Wilson had a different idea of what the settlement should be, which he called the 14 points. These were more lenient than what Britain and France wanted, and Wilson believed they were more oriented to preserving the peace and status quo in Europe. Wilson thought that Germany should retain most of its pre-war territory, with the exception of Alsace-Lorraine going to France. Wilson also believed that Germany should pay little or no reparations, and thought Europe should form a "League of Nations," to preserve the peace. He even thought that Germany should eventually be allowed into the League. Yet these ideas were immediately mocked and members of both the French and British governments personally insulted Wilson. During one round of negotiations where Wilson was presenting his 14 points, Clemenceau is said to have turned and whispered to Lloyd George saying, “You know that God Himself had only 10!” Another British delegate General Henry Wilson referred to President Wilson as a, “vain, ignorant, weak ass.” The League of Nations was created, but perhaps because most of Wilson's other points were ignored, the United States did not join. Whether or not Woodrow Wilson's peace would have fared better than the Treaty of Versailles is really immaterial; no one will ever know. But the fact that Wilson was simply ignored, mocked, and insulted, reinforces the idea that Britain and France only cared about punishing Germany, not seeking peace.
Britain and France had now completed one of the most devastating peace treaties in history. Mistakes had been made that would increase German aggression, and would drive Germany to desperate options. The economic impacts and the territorial changes worked in tandem to do this. Germany had no capacity to pay the reparations, without having their territories and colonies. If Germany refused to pay the reparations, even more territory would be occupied. This gave Germany reason to rearm and aggressively retake their territories such as the Saar Basin and the Rhineland. In addition, the political situation in Germany easily allowed the rise of radical ideas. With the inflation, the Weimar Republic, which was governing Germany in the early 20s, collapsed and socialist revolts and strikes in cities like Kiel caused total political upheaval. In addition, the hatred of Britain and France for taking Germans away from their nation in places like Danzig and Alsace-Lorraine created even more instability.
The main German complaints were that the Germans had been tricked into signing an armistice by believing that the peace treaty would be based on Woodrow Wilson’s 14 points which did not refer to guilt or reparations. However in early 1918 the Germans were not interested in signing an agreement based on these terms as they thought that they were going to win the war. Also in 1918 the Germans were extremely harsh at the treaty of Brest-Litovsk and ignored Wilson’s fourteen points during that treaty.
Another complaint was that the Germans were made to pay for the mistakes of their past rulers, the Kaiser and his Government, but the Kaiser had fled to Holland and the Government had resigned so the people should not be punished. During the reign of the Kaiser however the German people were very much in favour of the Kaiser and the way that he and his Government ran the country.
The Germans objected that this treaty was, as was pointed out earlier in this passage, an act of revenge which, when and if Germany recovered, would result in an act of aggression in return. This was justified because if someone is not punished for committing a crime then they are likely to do it again.
Germany also protested that the Allies took part in the arms race, the Alliance systems and the Empire building - these all helped cause the war and so Germany should not take the whole blame. It was, however, Germany which encouraged Austria-Hungary to go to war with Serbia and the war escalated from there.
A major complaint on behalf of the Germans was that the Reparations payments were extortionate and would cripple the German economy leaving ordinary men, women and children hungry. It was Germany though that had caused that damage and hence they should pay for the clearing up operation. During the war many French coalmines had been put out of action so while they were being repaired France was to receive coal from the German mines in the Saarland. Also during the time that Adolf Hitler was in power in Germany he spent more than the Allies demanded in reparations on weapons and rebuilding the army.
Another excuse was that the small military forces that Germany was enabled to keep meant that she would be at the mercy of her neighbours. The main reason that the Allies impose this was that the German army had been too powerful and had made Germany into a somewhat aggressive military state, so to make Germany peaceful limitations had to be put into place.
The loss of territory imposed by the Allies took a sizeable chunk of Germany’s wealth and reduced her population by 7.5 million Germans, thus undermining Wilson’s ideas on self-determination. As the above text has shown this was a reasonable argument as whenever a vote was held in the disputed country the Germans nearly always won.
In my view I think that the Treaty Of Versailles was unjust for a variety of reasons. The first is that not one of the ‘Big Four’ was satisfied with the Treaty Of Versailles, the British disagreed with the French who disagreed with the Americans who disagreed with the Italians; they collaborated slowly and unwillingly, which is not good for an alliance. The reparations neither crippled nor let off Germany. The Reparations should have been more corpulent as Germany was still the most economically sound country in Europe. Another factor, which aided my decision, was that the ‘Big Four’ often ignored expert advisors and were out to seek revenge on Germany. Another problem with the treaty was that there was no way that the Allies could enforce the army size without direct action, which would lead to another war.
In my view the treaty was not very well thought out, as it satisfied no one, and it is not very encouraging when four Allies begin to fall out with one another. The Treaty Of Versailles was not justified, as it was a compromise which fell between two very extremist views, rather like trying to make a compromise between a far right-wing political party and a far left wing political party, it was a catch-22 situation.
