Another of the most important impacts of the Treaty of Versailles was obviously the restrictions imposed by the treaty on the German armed forces. The pessimists find these restrictions exceedingly humiliating and intolerable for Germany and think these were highly unacceptable. There was a call in the 14 Points for all nations to disarm. The Germans did not accept the guilt for starting the war and the armed forces of a country with an extremely aggressive foreign policy like Germany imposed a threat to the Allies and so they restrained the army. The number of soldiers in the army could go up no further than 100,000. The use of the navy (including submarines) and the air force was temporarily disallowed. The optimist view expresses thankfulness towards the attitude of the Allies who could have fiercely invaded Germany keeping in mind the present military weaknesses of the country and could have taken major parts of the country away as well as could have done serious damage to the structure of the government. Instead they reduced the capability of the army which seemed quite a moderate step forward to punish the nation which had, assumably started the First World War. We could also say that Germany was able to evade the limitations in the 1920s-the justification of which can be reflected in the Treaty of Rapallo. The steps taken by the Allies was, supposingly, not surprising at all because the European countries like Britain, France and Italy needed the active help of the USA to defeat Germany and so they were quite likely to take those steps to establish military security in the continent.
The issue of financial burdens imposed upon Germany as compensation for the losses incurred by the Allies was most certainly an important impact of the Treaty of Versailles. The pessimists say that the compensations which the Weimar government was forced to pay were largely due to the fact that Germany were held primarily responsible for the First World War and so the imposition of these compensations on a country on the basis of a supposed guilt was morally unacceptable. Even before the Allies had drawn a conclusion on the amount of money Germany should pay as compensation Germany was having to pay a certain sum of money (amounting to nearly 100 million German Marks) which was considered as unfair for a country still suffering from the consequences of a devastating defeat in a major war. Ultimately it was decided by the Allies that Germany would have to pay £6600 million as compensation which was a huge amount of money for a country whose economy was on the verge of breakdown. The imposition of 26% fine on the revenue earned by the government through exports further worsened matters especially when the earnings of the government largely depended on the exports of the country. Apart from these major setbacks for the German economy it should also be noted that there were further restrictions as Germany lost its colonies overseas, the amount of investments in other countries was restricted, there was a ban on tariffs for five years and the country was forced to grant the Allies the status of the most favoured nations and give them discounts on products which turned out to be big obstacles on the path of the recovery of the German economy. The optimists try to justify the terms in the treaty which imposed such reparations on Germany. They say that the money was badly needed for the revival of the economies of France and Belgium which were in a much worse state than the German economy and the reparations were justified because Germany was responsible for causing the damages to the economy of those countries. Some historians argue that the fine was to bring about a balance between the economic abilities of the countries present on the mainland of Europe (like France and Belgium) and not across the Atlantic or the English Channel (America and Britain) because they felt that the German economic and political penetration in Europe was inevitable. Another consolation for Germany was that even after the huge amount of money that it had to pay which crippled her economy, Germany was still a powerful nation compared to the small vulnerable states which had developed as a consequence of the demise of the Austro-Hungarian, Turkish and Russian Empires and her position was almost as strong as it was in 1914. The economic crisis that took place in 1923 were not only caused by these reparations but the system of loans made the German economy vulnerable to the impact of the depression. Anyway, Germany themselves had demanded £6000 million from Russia in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and so Germany couldn’t complain about the sum which was not without precedent.
The issue of guilt cannot be overlooked when studying the impact of the Treaty of Versailles. The pessimist perspective sketches the fact that it was a disaster to impose the terms of the treaty on Germany by diktat (significantly when it was not included in the armistice terms or 14 Points) was a disaster. The view also says that since the Germans did not accept guilt, they had no ‘moral reason’ to accept the rest of the treaty. As the Weimar government was reluctant to accept guilt it strengthened the propaganda of the ‘stab in the back’ myth. Thus it gave the Weimar a bad name for being a continuing regime from the Second Reich rather than being a new beginning for the country and later led to providing Hitler with the grounds with which he forged closer ties with the nationalist right and these attempts to prove guilt was wrong actually weakened the Weimar Republic. The optimists, on the other hand, claim that Kaiser and the OHL were aiming for a war which would break the danger of encirclement by France and Russia and thus, the country deserved what it got. It was also suspected that the Germans made more than the Allies meant them to of a clause which as only Article 231 in the Treaty of Versailles.
The actions taken by the League of Nations was also an impact of the Treaty of Versailles and the pessimists here say that it increased a sense amongst the German people that they were being unfairly treated because Germany was excluded from the League and some historians portrait it as a big mistake. The actions which were taken in the treaty removed all possibilities for a peaceful revision probably to be done at a later date. The absence of the USA from the treaty removed a moderating influence on the treatment of Germany by the Allies. The optimists, however, maintain that the League of Nations actually never acted harshly towards Germany. The view also says that the inclusion of Germany in 1926 was the start of a ‘honeymoon period’.
To summarise the whole picture at the time when the Treaty of Versailles was concluded and the future impact it left on Germany and its politics in particular. The positive impacts on the Weimar Republic were quite a few but somehow the negative impacts cover those because of their importance and ultimate success in destroying the Weimar Republic. It could be said the Weimar did survive the crisis of 1919-1923 when the emotions of the German people were highly against the Treaty of Versailles and the economic burdens on Germany were becoming unbearable. It could also be pointed out that the assassination of Erzberger (who was a delegate at Versailles) and Rathenau (policy of fulfilment) arose protests against terrorism but not against Weimar Republic. The Treaty of Versailles also ceased to be an important issue in the middle years of the republic. The economic crisis that arose because of the Treaty of Versailles could have been averted by arrogating different policies and the crisis had more complex causes than consequences of Versailles. On the other hand, the negative impacts include the fuel that was provided by the Treaty of Versailles to light the fire of resentments the republic faced in its later years from the right wing extremists like that in 1919-1923 Kapp Putsch and Munich Putsch. In the longer term this hatred remained to be a strong factor in the rise of Adolf Hitler. It could be looked upon as the cause of the economic crisis in 1923 and 1929.
In conclusion we might say that the Treaty of Versailles lingered as a rallying point for right wing opposition for the newly born Weimar Republic. The optimist views, mainly presented by the Weimar historians in the Weimar schools were basically acting as a false lotion to soothe the wounds that Germany and its people had received-both on the practical scenario as well as on the emotional one and the negative impacts of the treaty that were presented were closer to reality than the positive ones. As the Weimar government rejected to accept guilt for the war the myth that the great German army had not been defeated on the battlefields but were ‘stabbed in the back’ by some of their own hypocrite countrymen. It gave strong grounds to the ultimate destructor of the Weimar republic-Adolf Hitler who cunningly manipulated this issue to win support from the German people. Little did the Weimar authorities now that signing the Treaty of Versailles at those embarrassing terms would ultimately lead to the Weimar Republic being doomed and here we see that most obviously this reason for the destruction of the republic was in its beginning.
