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To what extent was The Treaty of Versailles fair, and what were the consequences for Germany?

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To what extent was The Treaty of Versailles fair, and what were the consequences for Germany? The Treaty of Versailles was intended to be a peace agreement between the Allies and the Germans after the First World War ended in 1918. The Treaty was signed in Paris at the Versailles Palace, which involved the Allies (France, England, USA), and Germany. The immense Palace allowed a great number of politicians to be involved but the three most important were, Georges Clemenceau (France), Woodrow Wilson (USA) and David Lloyd George (England). The treaty of Versailles was mainly created to humiliate, weaken and punish Germany for the First World War. Although the "Big Three" denied it by saying that, it was a treaty to the purpose of stabilize and to maintain everlasting peace in Europe. The main costs for Germany in the Treaty were the following: * Pay 132 billion gold marks in reparations to countries, which had been damaged by the Germans. * Germany lost one eighth of all its land and all of its colonies. * The German army was to be restricted to 100,000 men, there was to be no conscription, no tanks or heavy artillery and no general staff. * The German navy was restricted to 15,000 men and no submarines, while the fleet was limited to six battleships, six cruisers and 12 destroyers. ...read more.


In the point of view of the Germans, the Treaty was unfair and a load of big nonsense and there are many arguments to prove so, the problem was that Germany was so weak in all aspects, that they could not argue about it. Germany had two choices; they accept the Treaty or face the allies ounce again in battle. So eventually, they accepted it. After assuming total responsibility of war, they had to sign another term that would make them pay for all the damages done through out the war, overall they had to pay $34 billion in reparations, this is a huge amount of money, very harsh and almost impossible for Germany to achieve considering their economic situation at the time, therefore Germans would pay as they would get. Other of the terms was to surrender from all the lands conquered during the war and surrender all German colonies as League of Nations mandates, this term was also very unfair to the German side, because apart form getting back their lands the allies had stolen land that belonged to Germany. For example, New Guinea in Africa was now controlled by France, this land was rich in coal and this way the allies prevented the Germans from another of their sources to pay the debts. It was also part of one of the terms to reduce drastically the German army limiting it to 100,000 men and 6 battleships; this completely weakened Germany and made them more vulnerable than ever with no military force to be able to start another war. ...read more.


This man believed that the Treaty of Versailles had completely defeated Germany as a country and that something had to be done. By 1930's Hitler's rise was already quite noticeable with the Nazi party being the second most voted one. In 1934 when the president Von Hindenburg died, Hitler seized a great opportunity to get into power and achieve what he always wanted, to take control of Germany and now there was nothing that could stop him. The Germans now controlled by Hitler have had time to rebuild themselves completely into a strong and powerful nation which is prepared to get the revenge and release all the anger that was created by the unfairness of the Treaty of Versailles. A Second World War was about to start. In my opinion the treaty was harsh in the way that the Allies managed to keep the Germans under control for some years. However being as harsh as it is, it is curious that the Germans were still able to come back and start another war. I feel that the treaty was perfectly fair, infact I think that the terms should have been even harsher in order to make the Germans pay for what they have done, and learn the lesson instead of stepping back and coming out one decade later stronger than ever and ready to start a new war. ...read more.

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