Furthermore before the war Germany had signed the blank cheque with the Austro-Hungarian Empire and allied with them. So if the Austro-Hungarians had gone into battle the Germans would have joined in to help them. When the Austro-Hungarian Empire had gone into battle with Serbia Germany had joined in the war. This means that the Germans had voluntarily stepped into a battle that had not previously involved them; the Germans had helped in making the war much larger. The Treaty was fair as the Germans had stepped into battle voluntarily know what the consequences would have been.
However there is also a debate that the Paris Peace Treaties were not at all fair. During the Paris peace talks Germany could not give their opinion. They were also not invited at the conference when making the terms. How could it be fair? The Germans had no way they could object to the terms. This was already unfair towards them. Germany had to accept everything.
In Addition in Article 231 in the Treaty of Versailles Germany had to take the full blame for starting the war. However it can be said that the start of the war is a complex mixture of imperialism, militarism and rising nationalism. Accepting the entire blame for the war is wrong.
Germany was forced to be paying extremely high reparations to the allies. They were supposed to be paying £6.6 billion. This was an amount that Germany would never be able to pay. The allies were trying to bankrupt them. This was a harsh decision made by the allies as the German economy had already been destroyed by the war. The Reparations had crippled them more. This was unfair on the Germans as the Allies had known about the German economic situation and still imposed high reparations.
Furthermore German overseas land had been stripped off by the allies and shared amongst the league of nation and other neighboring countries to Germany. Lands like German East Africa had been given away to Britain: Cameroon and Togoland German colonies were run by France. Germany had also lost land around its main land to the League of Nations like Danzig was taken by the League of Nations to give Poland a Port. This was unfair as only Germany lost its land and colonies to the League of Nations but the allies still got to keep their colonies.
In 1920 the Sevres treaty was signed that involved Turkey. Turkey had lost land to Greece and France. They had Lost Symra a large military position, to Greece and Syria to France. The Empire had been split to secure the allies as Symra was a strong military position. The Turks had refused to give away Symra and continued a war till 1923 led by Mustafa Kemel. This clearly tells us that the treaty was unfair and the Turks had to continue battle for what was theirs. In 1923 a treaty was signed called the treaty of Lausanne that gave Turkey Smyra back.
Another Treaty was signed in 1920 called the treaty of Trianon. This was a treaty against Hungary. Hungary had lost land to Romania, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia; lost 3,000,000 Hungarians and had to pay reparations. Hungary had lost a lot of its industry to the allies and the allies had implied a high reparation bill on them. As they had lost their industry it was very hard for them to pay their reparations. The Hungarian people that had moved were not welcomed and it was hard for them to feel as new citizens in different countries. This was un-fair on them as citizens had to move and had no choice. Hungary also was given big reparations that they would never be able to pay.
In Conclusion the Paris peace treaties could be said fair as the allies had won the war and they could do anything they wanted to the Germans. The Germans had joined the war voluntarily and should have known the consequences. The Germans did treaty Russia harshly in the treaty of Brest-Litovsk and would have also treaty the allies harshly if they had won the war. Although the defeated countries were not even invited to the conference to talk the terms and it had to be unfair as they had to accept all the terms given to them. Hungary had lost a lot of its population and Turkey had lost its strong military position to benefit the allies. The treaty could be said fair as the allies had won the war but they shouldn’t have imposed harsh decisions.
