In an attempt to solve the “German Problem” the treaty of Versailles stated that the German army could no longer exceed 100,000 men and conscription was to be abolished. Germany was forbidden ownership of military airplanes, submarines, tanks, heavy artillery, and poison gas and any German navy ships were to be given to Britain. Additionally, the Rhineland was to be occupied by allied troops for fifteen years. While Germany was forced to limit their military, none of the allied nations were expected to do the same. This would have meant that considering their limited military power Germany would never have been able to pose a threat to any neighbouring countries. Germany was left only with minor armed forces that could be used for domestic uprises, but were inferior in combat even to the Polish army, who in 1919 had 300,000 men. These changed were made in line with the belief that German aggression had caused the war, and therefore peace could only be ensured by limiting German military power. This reduction in military power and the allied troops in the Rhineland also reassured France that Germany could no longer pose a threat to them.
There was a strong sentiment among the European allies that Germany should pay the full cost of the war. While the idea of imposing a high indemnity was dropped due to objections made by Wilson, the other delegates focused on setting high reparations, which might cripple Germany for years to come. While the sum was not decided at the Treaty of Versailles, it was later decided by the Reparations Committee in 1921 that Germany was to pay £6,600 million; this high figure was justified by the Allied by Article 231, which obliged Germany to accept full responsibility for the outbreak of the war. Historians use the collapse of the German mark in 1923 as evidence for the reparations being too harsh on Germany, and the “Big Three’ attempting to forever cripple Germany.
Altogether, Germany lost over one millions square miles of land and 6 million subjects and her colonies were passed onto Britain and France. The Treaty also took away 10% of Germany’s industry and 15% of its agricultural land. British economist John Maynard Keynes argued that the coal and iron provisions were ‘inexpedient and disastrous’, leaving Germany with the ability to produce sixty million tons per annum, whereas in 1913 she has consumer 110 million tons. The use of protective tariffs (by France and Britain) was also said to have destroyed trade and the economic base of Germany, so that they could never recover.
The Treaty did however, leave Germany powerful with the means to once again cause trouble. The treaty did not ‘weaken Germany as much as the war weakened her European enemies and was ‘relatively lenient’ according to Niall Ferguson. The German economy had an underlying strength as demonstrated by the great recovery it had made by 1929, which showed that the Treaty was not economically punitive or vindictive and her ability to survive economically in the 1930s.
Historians like Lentin and Barnett claim that Germany was in fact in a superior position following the Treaty than she had been in 1914. The terms of the treaty left ‘Germany’s geopolitical status….was potentially buoyant’. The peacemakers failed to realise that the collapse of the Russian, Habsburg and Ottoman empires left Germany in a stronger position in Europe than ever before. The newly formed states that surrounded Germany were small, weak and ethnically divided, not even a match a defeated Germany. To the west of Germany was France and Belgium, both of whom had smaller populations and had been devastated by the war, while German industry and land had remained largely untouched by the effects of the war.
Butler felt that the main problems with the treaty arose from the fact that the Germans never accepted that they had suffered a defeat, and this meant that any peace settlement imposed on them would be seen as unfair as they believed that they had not lost the war.
Lentin further argues that the treaty ‘did not pacify Germany, still less permanently weaken her… but left her scourged, humiliated and resentful’. German remained powerful and unrepentant, unable to accept that they had lost the war. They resented the fact that they had no say in treaty, calling it a Diktat. The treaty was sufficiently onerous to ensure that Germany would always hate it but insufficiently so so that it failed to solve the ‘German Problem’. The Treaty fuelled German nationalism from resentment over her treatment by the Allies in the treaty and left Germany united in their resentful and hatred. Germany was both powerful and resentful, with a string of weak neighbours to her east, this would suggest that the Treaty of Versailles failed to solve the German problem at all.
The treaty was ‘relatively lenient’ and ‘too weak to be a “Catharginian peace”’. The settlement would only provide security against a new German aggression with the cooperation of the German Government. If she refused to work with the allies in the execution of the treaty, then the treaty would not be enforced. Following the End of the war Germany remained the greatest powers in Europe. Once Germany recovered from the economic effects of the war she would pose a major threat to the other European powers and the settlement contained nothing that would effectively guard against this situation.
Furthermore, Post-Revisionist historians like Ruth Henig and Elcock argue that ‘the failure of the settlement did not lie so much in the deficiencies of their work as in what happened after 1919’. The fact that the Treaty of Versailles was never enforced meant that any problems the ‘Big Three’ had hoped to solve were left unchecked and Germany was left to do as she pleased. The treaty was one of compromise, and therefore there was little will to enforce it by the US and Britain. France the only country that desired the enforcement of the Treaty was in no position to do so.
The US became disillusioned and chose to withdraw itself from European affairs, Britain came to see the peace as too harsh and favoured revision.