The Treaty of Versailles

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The Treaty of Versailles

To what extent can the treaty of Versailles (1919) be defended as fair?

In June of 1919 an historic settlement was signed after the Great War had concluded, which set out to restore peace in Europe. The treaty contained many points which were mainly focused around the losing nation of the war, Germany. The allies argued their points of view of what the treaty should entail and how the issue of peace in Europe could be preserved. The allied big three, Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson and Georges Clemenceau all had their own ideas of what should be done to ensure peace remained in Europe for years to come. During this essay I am going to discuss the areas which suggest the ideas formed by the key leaders in Versailles were fair and counter this with areas that could be deemed unfair with regards to Germany and its Citizens.

        The Treaty of Versailles signed on June 28th 1919 officially marked the end of WW1, which involved the world’s leaders agreeing on its terms. This proved to be a hard task and was a huge stumbling block which the treaty had to overcome to be successful. Britain, France and America (the big three) all had different aims for the provisions to be made. France felt very angry after the war; after all they had lost over 1.4 million troops and 400,000 civilians. This resulted in France having one key objective, make Germany pay for the war. Frances infrastructure was also severely damaged, homes were damaged and the economy was suffering due to damages to factories and key transport links. Overall, France had spent 24,265,583,000 on the war as a whole, which was a huge sum of money for any country to be without. Clemenceau saw this as a way to make Germany pay demanding Germany paid for the full cost of the war.

        Britain supported France in some respects, but too a lesser extent. Britain felt if France got what they demanded, in terms of Germany’s rich coal fields at the Ruhr, France could become a true power in central Europe. He also felt if the reparations were set too high, Germany could be embittered with revenge and seek to destroy peace in Europe once again. George was keen to preserve Britain’s naval supremacy, which had been put under some pressure by the Germans, hence why he supported the dispersion and limitation of the German naval fleet. One key issue George pondered was the economic consequences the reparations put on Germany would have. Germany was a key trading partner with Britain, which provided economic welfare for the whole country and George seeked to protect this as much as possible.

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        America had a different stance on many things, mainly due to the lack of support of the American public for the war. American people didn’t want to get involved in “petty European squabbles” and wanted to recoup the expense of war. Wilson drew a 14 point plan which the Germans looked upon fondly, due the provisions being less harsh than the ones drawn up by the British and French. It involved many territorial changes, such as Alsace-Lorraine back to France and economic provisions which would overall aid the Americans.

        The three countries put their points forward and these were discussed ...

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