The Successes and Failures of the Treaty of Versailles in Addressing the Causes of Conflict and Restoring Peace and Normality

The disarmament of Germany reduced her army to 100,000 men, the navy to 6 battleships, banned the air force, and changed the Rhineland to a demilitarized zone. The German disarmament was a huge failure because it is merely a short term solution to assuage the immediate fears of the victorious allies. As no other nation was required to disarm, the German disarmament clause was unrealistic due to reasons of national self interest. The Germans argued that the disarmament clause was too harsh and nurtured feelings of hatred, anger and frustration among the German population, which in turn, increased the level of nationalism. This clause created an atmosphere of political desperation, allowing extreme regimes to surface and gain power. A backlash was inevitable. In 1934, Hitler began to massively expand his military for his economic policy, directly going against the disarmament clause of the Treaty of Versailles. In 1935, Hitler again went against the Treaty by marching soldiers into the Rhineland. So, in the end, the disarmament clause was a failed short term solution in addressing the causes of conflict and caused peace and normality to become impossible in Germany, while provoking her to adopt an extreme political stance, which made war possible.

The reparation which was to be paid by Germany came to a total of £6,600 million. Although it was probably affordable to Germany, many Germans disagreed and blamed this clause for the great economic depression in 1929. This created an atmosphere of anger and aggression towards the foreign policy. They held the belief that they had nothing much to lose and started to lean towards a more extreme political stance. This economic depression allowed Hitler to come to power, who then implemented an aggressive economic policy which would become the basis for the Second World War. This, of course, made world peace and normality impossible. Therefore, the reparations, which although was probably payable, had a huge mental impact on the population of Germany, which allowed Hitler to rise to power, shattering world peace and normality.

As another term of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was stripped of all her colonies as well as losing territory such as Alsace-Lorraine and land along the Polish Corridor. Again, this angered the Germans and they felt they were being treated unfairly. They felt that the principle of self determination had not been extended to them. It was also felt that it was now only Germany as a single nation against all others, and so her actions had no regard for any other country, making her braver as well as more reckless. Germany’s loss of land also provided a motivation for the German population to engage in conflict to reclaim her territory in Europe, which was a major cause of World War II. Therefore, the territorial terms of the Treaty of Versailles did not contain Germany as planned, but caused her to engage in conflict to reclaim territory.

To justify reparations, the victorious allies inserted the ‘war guilt’ clause into the Treaty of Versailles, forcing Germany to admit the guilt and blame for started World War I. So as well as the humiliation the Germans faced for losing the war, they also had to deal with the blame. Every citizen greeted this clause with anger, with disgust and with horror. They were discontent and agitated at being the scapegoat for a circumstantial event, and it created lasting resentment towards the allies. In Germany, there was no peace and normality. The war guilt clause of the Treaty of Versailles failed to address the causes of conflict and to restore peace and normality, and in addition heightened the feeling of anger and injustice felt by the Germans, and gave them motivation for retribution.

In conclusion, the Treaty of Versailles was largely a failure, with the disarmament, reparation, territorial and war guilt clause causing Germany to feel hatred and anger towards the allies. In addition, the fact that Germany believed that an injustice had been committed against them provoked her to seek vengeance and therefore causing peace and normality to be impossible to achieve. The Treaty of Versailles created an economic, political and social extreme, allowing Germany to adopt aggressive policies as they felt they had nothing else to lose. These terms of the treaty was merely a short term solution to alleviate the fears of the allies and the problem of Germany was not dealt with sufficiently, so the treaty had failed to address the causes of conflict. The League of Nations although had enjoyed limited success, was a failure because of the selfishness displayed by the European powers. The Treaty of Versailles lacked practicality and ultimately failed at ‘addressing the causes of conflict and restoring peace and normality’, because there was a World War II.

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