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Effects from WWI and The Treaty of Versailles DBQ

Section 1: Treaty of Versailles

Part 1: Read through the terms of the treaty and label each as an economic, territorial, political, military, or “other.”

 Clause 231, or the ‘war guilt clause’ established the following:

The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for
causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been
subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies. Article 231,
Treaty of Versailles, 1919.

 Germany was to disarmed. It was forbidden to have submarines, an air force, armoured cars, or tanks. It could
keep 6 battleships and an army of 100,000 men to provide internal security.

 The west bank of the Rhine was demilitarized and Allied army of occupation The following points were agreed
upon:

 Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France.

 The Saarland was put under the administration of the League of Nations for 15 years, after which
a plebiscite was to allow the inhabitants to decide whether they wanted to be annexed to Germany or France.

 Eupen, Moresnet, and Malmedy were to become parts of Belgium after a plebiscite in 1920.

 Germany as a country was split in two [see map]. Parts of Upper Silesia, Poznan, and West Prussia given to the
new Poland, creating a ‘Polish Corridor’ between Germany and East Prussia. It gave Poland access to the sea.

 The German port of Danzig became a free city under the mandate of the League of Nations.

 North Schleswig was given to Denmark after a plebiscite (South Schleswig remained German).

 All territory Germany claimed from Russia in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was reassigned: Estonia, Latvia, and
Lithuania were made independent states in line with the principle of self-determination.

 The port of Memel was to be given to Lithuania in 1922.

 Union (Anschluss) between Germany and Austria was forbidden.

 Germany’s African colonies were taken away. Germany’s colonies were handed over to the League of Nations.

 The mandate system thus meant that nations who were ‘looking after’ Germany’s former colonies would be
answerable to the League of Nations. These territories were the ‘mandates.’

 The ‘war guilt’ clause provided justification for Allied demands for reparations. The Inter-Allied Reparations
Commission that, in 1921, came up with the reparations sum of £6,600 million.

 The Treaty also set down the extradition and trial of the Kaiser and other ‘war criminals’. However, the Dutch
government refused to hand over the Kaiser,and in the end only a few German military commanders and
submarine captains were tried by a German military court at Leipzig and received light sentences
Part 2:

Read through the contemporary views expressed in Sources A, B, and C. Then discuss what do they EACH reveal about
the attitude towards the Treaty of Versailles at that time?

Source A

From John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace (Harcourt Brace, 1920), p.56.

the future life of Europe was not their concern: its means of livelihood was not their anxiety. Their preoccupations, good
and bad alike, related to frontiers and nationalities, to the balance of power, to imperial aggrandisements, to the future
enfeeblement of a strong and dangerous enemy, to revenge, and to the shifting by the victors of their unbearable
financial burdens onto the shoulders of the defeated.

Keynes was a British economist and chief representative at negotiations prior to the Treaty of Versailles, although he
resigned from the British delegation.

Source B

Speech by Lloyd George to the House of Commons, 1919.

…Take the territorial terms. In so far as territories have been taken away from Germany, it is a restoration. Alsace-
Lorraine was forcibly taken from the land to which its population were deeply attached. Is it an injustice to restore them
to their country? Schleswig-Holstein, the meanest of the Hohenzollern frauds; robbing a small, poor, helpless country,
and then retaining that land against the wishes of the population for 50 to 60 years. I am glad the opportunity has come
for restoring Schleswig-Holstein. Poland, torn to bits to feed the carnivorous greed of Russian, Austrian and Prussian
autocracy. This Treaty has re-knit the torn flag of Poland.

Source C

German newspaper, Deutsche Zeitung, 1919.

Today in the Hall of Mirrors of Versailles the disgraceful Treaty is being signed. Do not forget it! The German people will
with unceasing labour press forward to reconquer the place among nations to which it is entitled. Then will come the
vengeance for the same of 1919.

Write your response below:

Part 3: UK Guardian newspaper giving the news report that was made about the Versailles Conference
The first step in the final stage of the establishment of an enduring peace was taken this afternoon in the Trianon Palace hotel at
Versailles. For the first time Allied and enemy plenipotentiaries were face to face; those who had the privilege of witnessing the
memorable scene could not avoid associating the proceedings in the dining hall of the palace with those of a court of justice.

Round the room sat representatives of an outraged world. The German plenipotentiaries facing them occupied seats at a little table
at the bottom of the hall, placed there in the manner of those called upon to answer an indictment.

There was throughout a certain tension. One was acutely conscious of antagonists brought face to face, although there was no
attempt on the part of the Allies to emphasise this. They extended to Germany's representatives in every particular "the courtesy of
privileged nationals" - yet the impression of adversaries was distinctly there. One heard it in the clearcut, precise tones of the
president, France's veteran statesman. Monsieur Clemenceau, in his opening words, struck the note of the afternoon: "The time has
come when we must settle our account. You have asked for peace. We are ready to give you peace."

Contrasting with the president's clear, articulate voice was the guttural baritone of Count von Brockdorff-Rantzau, who throughout
his long statement conveyed the feeling of a certain emotional strain. In the main we seemed to be hearing a desperate plea for
leniency from one not accustomed to speak in such terms, but at times the tone seemed to change suddenly, and the count became
accusative, protesting that not Germany alone was guilty.

The Draft Treaty of Peace now handed to the Germans is designed to set forth the conditions upon which alone the Allied and
associated powers will make peace with Germany, and to establish those international arrangements which the allies have devised
for the prevention of wars in the future and the betterment of mankind.

The Draft Treaty, however, does not deal, except incidentally, with the problems arising out of the liquidation of the Austrian
empire, nor with the territories of two enemy powers, Turkey and Bulgaria.

The official summary of the Preliminary Treaty of Peace includes the following terms:

• Germany is to acknowledge responsibility for causing all the war loss and damage suffered by the Allies. As an immediate step,
Germany is to pay within two years £1,000,000,000 in either gold, goods, ships or other forms of payment.

• Bond issues "are presently to be required of Germany in acknowledgment of her debt" of £3,000,000,000 sterling, bearing 2½%
interest between 1921 and 1926; and an undertaking to deliver an additional amount of £2,000,000,000 sterling, bearing interest at
5%, under terms to be fixed by the commission.

• In addition, Germany is to bind herself to repay all Belgium's war debt to the Allies. The total of the war loans to Belgium up to the
date of the armistice is not given, but it is understood to be over £200,000,000.

• Germany is to abolish compulsory military service, to limit her army to 100,000, and to limit her production of war material.

• The Dutch government are to be asked to surrender the ex-kaiser, and a special tribunal composed of one judge from each of the
five great powers are to try him for "a supreme offence against International Morality and the Sanctity of Treaties." Military tribunals
are to try other war criminals.

• Alsace-Lorraine returns to France.

•Extract from the Manchester Guardian, May 8 1919

A warning from John Maynard Keynes

Moved by insane delusion and reckless self-regard, the German people overturned the foundations on which we all lived and built.
But the spokesmen of the French and British peoples have run the risk of completing the ruin, by a peace which, if it is carried into
effect, must impair yet further, when it might have restored, the delicate, complicated organisation through which alone the
European peoples can employ themselves and live.

In this lies the destructive significance of the Peace of Paris. If the European civil war is to end with France and Italy abusing their
momentary victorious power to destroy Germany and Austria-Hungary now prostrate, they invite their own destruction also, being
so deeply and inextricably intertwined with their victims by hidden psychic and economic bonds.
• The economist John Maynard Keynes represented the Treasury at Versailles. In his book The Economic Consequences of the Peace
(1919), he correctly forecast it would lead to economic disaster.

Letter of complaint by the leader of the German delegation

We came to Versailles in the expectation of receiving a peace proposal based on the agreed principles. We were firmly resolved to
do everything in our power with a view of fulfilling the grave obligations which we had undertaken. We hoped for the peace of
justice which had been promised to us.

We were aghast when we read in documents the demands made upon us, the victorious violence of our enemies. The more deeply
we penetrate into the spirit of this treaty, the more convinced we become of the impossibility of carrying it out. The exactions of this
treaty are more than the German people can bear.

Although the exaction of the cost of the war has been expressly renounced, yet Germany, thus cut in pieces and weakened, must
declare herself ready in principle to bear all the war expenses of her enemies, which would exceed many times over the total
amount of German state and private assets. Meanwhile her enemies demand, in excess of the agreed conditions, reparation for
damage suffered by their civil population. No limit is fixed, save the capacity of the German people for payment.

The reconstruction of our economic life is at the same time rendered impossible. We must surrender our merchant fleet. We are to
renounce all foreign securities. We must thus renounce the realisation of all our aims in the spheres of politics, economics, and
ideas.

The German people are excluded from the League of Nations, to which is entrusted all work of common interest to the world. Thus
must a whole people sign the decree for its proscription - nay, its own death sentence.

• Extract from a formal letter of complaint sent by Count von Brockdorff-Rantzau to the conference president, Georges Clemenceau

What are the main complaints that the Count makes regarding the unfairness of the Treaty to Germany?

Now consider these verdicts by historians on the Treaty of Versailles. What points do they have in common? What
evidence can you find to support each verdict?

'[The Treaty of Versailles] did not pacify Germany, still less permanently weaken her, appearances notwithstanding, but
left her scourged, humiliated and resentful' A Lentin, Guilt at Versailles, 1984

'Severe as the Treaty of Versailles seemed to many Germans, it should be remembered that Germany might easily have
fared much worse..However, the Germans as a nation were not included to count their blessings in 1919...most of all
they resented the moral stigma of sole war-guilt which they did not feel..To the discerning it was clear from the
beginning that the Versailles settlement would last only as long as the victorious powers were in a position to enforce it
on a bitterly resentful people' William Carr, A History of Germany 1815 - 1945

'The fact that [the Versailles settlement] did not survive the 1920s intact stemmed....not so much from the terms of the
peace treaties themselves but from political leaders in the inter-war period to enforce them'. Ruth Henig, Versailles and
After, 1919 - 1933

Write your response below here:

Section 2: How did the war affect political, social, cultural and economic developments in the 1920s?

Part 1:

What message do you think that William Orpen was making with this painting? Write your response to the right 
Part 2: Study the diagram which is from The Economist magazine.

What can we learn from this diagram regarding the impact of the war on different countries?

Who benefited the most?

Who suffered the most economically?