Why was the Treaty of Versailles so problematic?

On Jan. 10, 1920, the controversial Treaty of Versailles — which established the terms for peace at the end of World War I — went into effect. In Carol Helstosky’s class on the War to End All Wars, typically offered during spring quarter, the treaty provides students a lot to ponder and debate. Via an email exchange, Helstosky, who serves as chair of the University of Denver’s Department of History, offered the DU Newsroom a crash course in the treaty’s provisions and far-reaching ramifications.

The Treaty of Versailles is famous for both solving and creating problems. What were the treaty’s major accomplishments? 

The treaty, signed on June 28, 1919, was the product of conflict between the Allied victors. The United States hoped to achieve, in Woodrow Wilson’s words, “peace without victory,” and Britain hoped to put Germany back on its economic feet. Meanwhile, France and other Allied nations wanted just compensation for the physical, moral and economic devastation of the war. Given the contradictory aims of reparations and future stability, statesmen found themselves in a terrible bind. The Allied nations ultimately rejected the idea of peace without victory in favor of making Germany pay for causing the war (in their minds) and for perpetuating and escalating the conflict for four long years. The treaty forced Germany to surrender colonies in Africa, Asia and the Pacific; cede territory to other nations like France and Poland; reduce the size of its military; pay war reparations to the Allied countries; and accept guilt for the war.

What were the treaty’s most controversial provisions?

We tend to think the reparations payments were controversial, but these provisions must be viewed in proper historical context. Reparations and harsh peace settlements were not unusual. For example, when Russia surrendered to Germany in 1917, Germany issued extraordinarily harsh peace terms under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (these terms were invalidated by the Paris peace settlements). While there were a few vocal critics of the Versailles Treaty’s economic provisions, many citizens of the nations that fought for four years felt the settlement did not go far enough. Indeed, one could ask what was the economic value of 10 million soldiers’ lives lost on all sides of the conflict?

Equally controversial, perhaps, were the territorial adjustments dictated by the Versailles Treaty as well as other postwar treaties. These adjustments led to resettlement of populations, and in central and eastern Europe, new nations were carved out of old empires. New nations were created, but they were unstable and vulnerable, given that they had little support or funding from more established nations.  

What was the treaty’s impact on everyday German citizens? 

No one in Germany was happy with the settlement, and the Allies threatened Germans with military invasion to get them to sign the treaty. After four years of war and sacrifice, German citizens felt humiliated to accept blame for the war and territorial loss. Equally important, the economic provisions of the treaty slowed the nation’s postwar recovery. Slow economic growth and popular dissatisfaction were difficult to manage, especially for the new Weimar Republic, and political leaders struggled to manage the growing volume of complaints. When the government defaulted on payments in 1923, France and Belgium lost patience and occupied the Ruhr mining region. In response, the German government printed more currency to pay the French, sending German citizens into hyperinflation, which wiped out the savings of the middle class. By the mid-1920s, the German economy recovered, and the United States helped Germany renegotiate reparations payments with the Dawes Plan. Germany managed to rebuild and recover after the war, but not at a pace that satisfied everyone.

Many historians have assigned the treaty some responsibility for the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany. How so?

It is certainly true that far right parties in Germany used the Versailles Treaty to resist and reject German democracy and the Weimar Republic, probably because the treaty was so unpopular among German citizens. It is also true that Adolf Hitler frequently railed against the Versailles Treaty in his speeches and promised to reverse the treaty’s provisions if elected leader of Germany. The Versailles Treaty was one of many factors that led to the rise of radical political parties, but it is important to remember that across Europe, citizens were looking for radical solutions to their problems. When I talk about the aftermath of World War I in my classes, for example, I emphasize that the peace settlement created political upheaval in victorious nations as well as in Germany. Italy was on the Allied side and fought for the promise of land after signing the Treaty of London in 1915. After the war, however, Italian politicians returned from Paris empty-handed because secret treaties were invalidated by statesmen during the peace negotiations. Furious Italian nationalists launched protests and occupied the city of Fiume (now Rijeka), thumbing their noses at the peace settlement and defying the government’s authority. The Nazis, Italian Fascists and other radical politicians attempted to rally people against democratic governments by using the Treaty of Versailles as a vehicle of discontent.

A hundred years later, what does the treaty have to teach us about the aftermath of war? 

The First World War had complex origins, and the war was fought over the course of four years, wiping out an entire generation of young men and creating massive social, political and cultural upheavals. In my class on World War I, we spend 10 weeks closely studying the war, and we still have many questions and concerns at the end of the quarter. When we discuss the Versailles Treaty, my students conclude that it was an impossible task for any one treaty, conference or settlement to put European nations back on track after such a grueling and complicated war. They also conclude that it seems unfair to blame the Treaty of Versailles for the Second World War. How could individual actors be able to see or understand what was going to happen? I agree with my students on both counts.

For those who want to learn more about the treaty, what suggestions do you have for additional reading?

This list of books should get you started:

• David Andelman’s “A Shattered Peace. Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today” (2008)

• Robert Gerwarth’s “The Vanquished. Why the First World War Failed to End” (2016)

• Erik Goldstein’s “The First World War Peace Settlements, 1919–1925” (2013)

• Margaret MacMillan’s “Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World” (2002)

• Alan Sharp’s “The Versailles Settlement: Peacemaking after the First World War, 1919–1923” (2018)

The Germans hated the Treaty of Versailles because they had not been allowed to take part in the Conference.   They thought they had been tricked and betrayed, and they hated the Treaty.

1. The Germans hated Clause 231 (which blamed Germany for causing the war), because it was the excuse for all the harsh clauses of the Treaty, and because they thought Russia was to blame for starting the war.  

2. Germany’s military power was reduced, and it was not allowed any troops in the Rhineland.   Germans said this left them powerless against even the tiny countries.   Yet at the same time, Germany was not allowed to join the League of Nations – an insult.

3. Germany had to pay £6,600 million ‘reparations’, a huge sum which Germans felt was just designed to destroy their economy and starve their children.  

4. Finally, Germans hated the loss of land.   Alsace-Lorraine wwas given back to France – a national humiliation.   Germany’s colonies were given to France or Britain, which Germans saw as empire-building.   Worst of all, huge areas of Germany were given to countries like Poland, and Germany was not allowed to unite with Austria.   The Germans thought this was unfair, because other nations were given self-determination – but many Germans LOST the right to be part of Germany.

The main reasons why the Germans hated the Treaty of Versailles was because they thought it was unfair.   Germany had not taken part in the Conference.   The terms were imposed upon Germany – when Germany disagreed, the Allies threatened to go to war again.   The Germans were treated like a defeated country, but they did not think they had been defeated.   They had signed an Armistice –  a ceasefire – in 1918, and they had thought they were accepting Wilson’s 14 Points.   In the event, few of the 14 Points got into the Treaty.   The Germans thought they had been tricked and betrayed, and they hated the Treaty.

            The Germans were also furious about the various terms of the Treaty.   They hated clause 231 – the ‘War Guilt’ clause – which stated that Germany had caused ‘all the loss and damage’ of the war.   Firstly, the Germans did not think that they had caused the war (for the Germans, the war was a war of self-defence against Russia, which had mobilised 31 July 1914).   During the 1920s, the Germans published all their secret documents from 1914, to prove they had tried to stop the war.   Secondly, the Germans hated clause 231 because accepting it gave the Allies the moral right to punish Germany – it validated all the harsh terms of the Treaty.

            Germany hated the military terms of the Treaty (army of 100,000, only 6 battleships, no submarines or aeroplanes).   The Germans said it left them powerless against even the tiny new nation-states.   The demilitarisation of the Rhineland was hated because the Weimar republic was weak, and there were many rebellions.   But in April 1920, when the Germans sent troops into the Rhineland to stop rioting, the French invaded.   The Germans said that not to be able to send troops even to places inside Germany was a national insult.

            Yet, although the Allies did not allow Germany an army, they did not let her join the League of Nations.   This was an insult, and it also meant the Germany had no way ever to get fair treatment by other states – neither armies nor argument.

            The Germans also hated reparations, set eventually (1921) at £6.6 billion, to be paid in instalments until 1984.   They did not accept that Germany had caused all the damage.   They felt that the huge sum was just designed to destroy their economy and starve their children.   Most of all, they hated reparations because they too had rebuilding work to do.   Germany’s economy was ruined, but, instead of being able to pump investment into German industry, the country had to send abroad huge sums of money that German industry was not yet strong enough to earn.

            Finally, the territorial terms of the Treaty of Versailles also made the Germans angry.   Germany lost 10% of its land.   The Saar was a valuable coalfield, and West Prussia and Upper Silesia were rich farming areas, so their loss further weakened Germany’s economy.   The loss of the Polish corridor separated East Prussia from Germany, and further damaged the German economy.   Germany lost 16% of its coalfields and half its iron and steel industry.   The loss of all Germany’s colonies to be mandates was seen as just so much British empire-building.   The loss of Malmedy to Belgium, Schleswig to Denmark, Memel to Lithuania – and most of all Alsace-Lorraine to France – was also a national humiliation.   The Treaty of Versailles also forbade Anschluss with Austria.   This seemed unfair to the Germans, because everywhere else in Europe, the Treaties of 1919–20 gave peoples self-determination, but they divided Germany, and put 12½% of its population into other countries.