To what extent must Germany, England, France, Japan or the US bear the responsibility for the fact that the peace of 1918 crumbles 1939?

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History Essay

Nicholas Larsen 3.u

To what extent must Germany, England, France, Japan or the US bear the responsibility for the fact that the peace of 1918 crumbles 1939?

        The treaty of Versailles was signed in June 1919; the signatures came from represents from all the ally forces, most notably France, Britain and the US. This treaty was the most noticeable of the many signed to prevent Germany to start a new war and keep peace all over the world. We all know that a war came twenty years later, and it was officially started by Germany, but were they the only participants to blame for World War two? Had the allies already declare war on Germany in 1919 during the peace treaties?

        Having lost the war Germany was responsible for paying a penalty fine to the nations that had won against her. The winning nations, the allies, all met up in Versailles trying to agree upon what consequences Germany had to suffer for having invaded neighbouring nations, mainly France, and costing the allies many casualties and resources. “The Big Three” (France, Britain and the US) attended the treaty meeting, discussing the conditions of Germany’s war debt, but the demands were widely different, as the nations had their own plans for Germany’s future.  

France having already suffered war against Germany, losing the Franco-Prussian (/German), was eager to get rid of the threat from their war-eager neighbour. France made it very clear that she wanted to weaken Germany as much as possible. Their demands for this was to take all of Germany’s natural resources, demolish the army and requiring an unnaturally large sum of money for repairing the damages. These demands were made to reassure the French citizens that there would never be war on French soil again, because of the arrangements of crippling the German industry and army. These suggestions were seen as very aggressive in the eyes on the two others who disagreed, wanting a more sympathetic penalty.

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Britain and USA were thinking more on economic matters when discussing Germany’s penalty of compensations. Britain had gotten rid of its main economic rival, but now saw France as the new upcoming rival in Europe, even as it’s possible upcoming successor.  Britain did not want to cripple Germany totally since it still wanted to trade; the US shared the same reason to sympathise with Germany. Although the US did not want to participate too much in the affairs of Europe, they were very much interested in getting Germany’s loans paid back. Britain and America’s only demands were a slight demilitarization, ...

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