The Treaty of Versailles vs. The Treaty of Vienna. Both the Congress of Vienna, headed by Klemens von Metternich of Austria after the Napoleonic Wars, and the Paris Peace Conference, which was held after the Great War, resulted in treaties that were aimed

        In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the European powers signed many alliances depending on their interests and goals. Triple Entente, consisting of Great Britain, France and Russia; and Triple Alliance, consisting of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy were the most important alliances. Later on they would, more or less, form the Allied Powers and the Central Powers, respectively; with some additional countries when they were entering into World War One (WWI) in 1914. Although in the beginning there were only European countries fighting; it was called world war, because there would be involvement of countries outside of Europe such as United States and Japan. The world had never seen a war like before… Maybe, it was one of the bloodiest wars in the human history. Millions of people died, wounded; hundreds of towns and cities were destroyed to bits. At the end of WWI many treaties were signed with the defeated side, which was the Central Powers. Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919 between Germany and the Allied Powers (representatives from France, United States, Great Britain and Italy), and was the harshest peace treaty of the war. Germany had to accept the guilt for the war, the treaty restricted German army to 100,000 troops with no submarines or airplanes, had to pay huge payments for all the damage of the war, lost many territories and her colonies, and the most bizarre thing was that Germany had not even invited to the conference. It is clear that the Allies wanted to punish Germany so bad that Germany would never become strong enough to start a war again. The representatives, however, claimed that they only want to maintain peace in Europe. How can they expect to have peace by making Germany angry? It is impossible. Due to the all clauses, Germany’s government and economy would weaken. Moreover, they would adopt the Russian revolutionist ideas and become a communist country. The representatives, apparently, could not see the threat of Communism while they were singing their song of “Peace, Perfect Peace.” The Treaty of Versailles created peace to some extent but only for a short period of time because Germany would want to take revenge from all the countries which punished her. That would ruin the peace in Europe with another major war, known as the World War Two.

        The Treaty of Vienna and the Treaty of Versailles have a great deal of similarities and dissimilarities between each other. First of all, both of them wished for everlasting peace after strenuous wars in the European continent. However, they had different procedures to carry out their goal. For example, the Treaty of Versailles preferred to punish and ignore Germany; the representatives in the Treaty of Vienna decided, firstly, to punish France then to restore their relations with France, so that she would not feel humiliated and isolated from continental politics. The decision in Vienna turned out to be a cleverer one as it maintained peace a lot longer time than the other treaty. In both cases after the wars, the conferences redrew the political map of Europe. They made it to stabilize their continent after the atrocious wars. Another similarity was the defeated sides must pay for their defeat in terms of money and lands. From both France and, especially, Germany huge amounts of money were demanded for war indemnities. They had to sacrifice some of their lands in order to gratify the desires of the victorious powers. The treaties are disparate for their point of view of the defeated countries. For instance, Germany did not participate in decision-making in the Treaty of Versailles, whereas France joined the alliance after completing her payments of war indemnities. The French existence was valuable for the victorious powers since they appreciated her existence in decision-making for Europe’s future. On the other side, the Allies believed Germany should have been punished severely and there was no need to invite Germany to the conference. Making Germany suffer caused to inequality in Europe. Even though every country that was involved in the war was guilty, basically, only Germany was punished for all the damage in the war. This double standard indicates that unpleasant events were waiting for Europe such as another big war. Although they occurred in different time periods, the two treaties determined the future of Europe without concerning their effectiveness because the Treaty of Versailles, as an unsuccessful treaty, determined Europe’s future in short period of time than the Treaty of Vienna.

The Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of Vienna were two controversial documents. The Treaty of Vienna placed importance to the benefits of the European societies. The representatives did not ignore France, but made her part of their alliance. The representatives aimed to establish and maintain peace in Europe without causing to any revengeful feeling of France. The friendly policy of the victorious powers in Vienna towards France encouraged the equality among European nations and it was achieved. On the other side of the coin, the representatives at Versailles purposed the weakening of Germany and they did that as cruelly as they could. Consequently, Germany would not have the strength to recover from such hard condition and would not able to start a war once again. In this manner, the representatives believed they had achieved the everlasting peace but they have missed an important point… This point is revolutionary ideas of Russia, which would inspire the German society and lead to another major war. This proves the delegates at Versailles had made a mistake in carrying out their policies. Their policy could only avoid a big war for twenty years, which is five times less than the accomplishment at Vienna. Thus, the Treaty of Vienna is more successful than the Treaty of Versailles. The dissimilarities in the Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of Vienna were huge that they outshone the representatives’ efforts to prosper their intentions.

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4. Class Handouts