hrough an analysis of the consequences of the treaty of Versailles, it is made very clear that immediately, the peace treaty weakened Germany greatly and it also humiliated the country.

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Analyse the result of one twentieth century treaty or peace settlement?

     On 28th June 1919, the victors of World War I (WWI) including Great Britain, France and Italy signed the Treaty of Versailles at famous Hall of Mirrors, which mainly dealt with Germany as one of the chief aggressors that was responsible for the outbreak of WWI. WWI at that time was regarded as "a war to end all wars" but as WWII broke out in Europe, people realized that Versailles was indeed "a peace to end all peace" which is rather true. The main aim of this essay is therefore to provide an analysis of the impact of the Treaty of Versailles as one twentieth century peace settlement. The impact of Versailles will include both immediate effect, short-term effects and long-term consequences.

     There were 5 different peace treaties at the end of WWI of which Versailles was the one that dealt with Germany. In Versailles, Germany was blamed for the outbreak of WWI and that was made clear in the "War Guilt Clause" which provided the Allies a justification for demanding an enormous amount of war indemnities from Germany. Interestingly, the U.S Senate did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles so the U.S neither took part in formulating the terms of the Treaty nor signed the Treaty. This allowed Great Britain and France to exert most influence over the terms of the treaty. Unlike Great Britain whose territory was not on the European continent, France shared border with Germany and suffered the most in the war so it did not come as a surprise that France had very high demands for the Germans and the French fear of future German aggression was made very explicit through the terms of the peace treaty. Firstly, Germany lost around 13% of its territory and all of its overseas colonies were to be put under the administration of the League of Nations. Out of that 13% lost of territory, Alsace-Lorraine was to be returned to France, Upper Silesia given to Poland, Danzig made a plebiscite and the formation of the Polish Corridor that split up Germany with the historic "East Prussia" - the birthplace of German nationalism, separated from the remainder of German territory. Furthermore, the Rhineland, which was a strip of land sandwich between French and German territory, became a demilitarised zone. More humiliating was the destruction of the German army with its Chief of Staff dissolved, its army limited to 100.000 men, its submarines and air force destroyed and its navy put under the administration of the League of Nations. Germany was also required to pay £6.6 billions that was to be paid in annual installments by the German Government until 1983. This completely destroyed the German army and the German economy which ensured that there could be no political stability in Germany. These are the immediate impact of the treaty on Germany.

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     The Treaty of Versailles was greeted in Germany with anger and hatred because of its crushing and vindictive terms. Unlike in WWII where the war was also fought on German soil and it was very clear that Nazi Germany was defeated, WWI was not fought on German soil, its industries were relatively untouched and since mass media was not as developed as in the 1930s and later on, it was very difficult for the German to believe that Germany had lost the war. Exploiting this disbelief in Germany's defeat in the war, right-wing nationalist groups and the military ...

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