Treaty of Versailles

Treaty of Versailles

Introduction

The rise of Nazism in Germany is sometimes attributed to the signing of one of the most significant documents in history: the Treaty of Versailles (June 28, 1919). Eight months after the United States entered World War I, President Woodrow Wilson formulated his famous Fourteen Points. A few months later the German government, facing heavy losses on the battleground, appealed to Wilson to start negotiations on the basis of these principles. Following intense U.S. consultations with the other Allied and Associated Powers, first an armistice was concluded with Germany on November 11, 1918, then a year-long comprehensive peace conference was organized in Paris between January 1919 and January 1920. The Treaty of Versailles was a product of the Paris process. Though the treaty marked the conclusion of fighting between the Allies and Germany, the U.S. Senate refused to ratify it. Technically, the United States would remain at war with Germany until the Treaty of Berlin in 1921.

Discussion

Unprecedented Upheaval

Peace treaties with each of the defeated countries concluded the Great War of 1914-1918. The map of European continent emerged completely transformed with the disappearance of four empires, German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman, in favor of small nationalist states, often heterogeneous, protest ... and powerless.

Negotiators Divided

One of the most important peace treaties was signed with Germany in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, on the premises where the German Empire was founded on January 18th, 1871. For the form, the representatives of 27 countries were allies against the Germans. However, the Treaty of Versailles was concocted in a closed circle by only four persons (Philander, 2010). These were French negotiators Georges Clemenceau, Britain's David Lloyd George, the American Thomas Woodrow Wilson and Italy's Vittorio Orlando. These men were of the Left Centre, distrustful of the church and Austrian Catholics, and hostile to the Communists who held Russia under their boot, and sowed the Revolution in Central Europe. President Wilson was an idealist who wanted to impose the rights of peoples to self-determination in accordance with his 14 points in January 1918. Despite the contribution of his troops, he presented himself as a true leader of the civilized world. Unlike European countries, the United States had increased their economic power by virtue of the war and arms sales to its Allies, France and England (Hay, 2001).

British Prime Minister Lloyd George had eyes on the German colonies and the internal market of the vanquished. Clemenceau and the French recovery of Alsace-Lorraine, annexed by Germany in 1871, is a minimum. Clemenceau also wanted to humiliate him in every way possible to destroy Germany and Austria-Hungary, guilty in his eyes to be moderate, Catholic and monarchist. The fourth negotiator, Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando, was full of eloquence. He wanted nothing more than annexations around the Adriatic Sea at the expense of Austria-Hungary (he temporarily left the negotiating table, on May 1919, to support his claims (Slavicek, 2010).

A Treaty Exceedingly Hard

The German plenipotentiaries were kept out of discussions on the preparation of the ...