Causes and Effects of the Treaty Of Versailles terms

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  • Created by: lgs08130
  • Created on: 28-03-13 13:55

Causes and Effects of the Treaty Of Versailles terms

Causes

  • 1. War guilt clause - Caused by the Allies need to humiliate the Germans as much as possible, and also to justify all the other terms (This way they could ask for massive reparations and simply say that it was Germany's fault for starting the war in the first place)
  • 2. Limitations on Germany's armed forces- caused by the Allies fear of another war- the idea was that if Germany had no way of attacking the allies, they did not have to fear for their safety. This was especially pushed by France, as they were right next to Germany.
  • 3. Reparations- France and Britain needed to cover the costs of the war. 23000 French factories were destroyed during the war, which meant that they needed big money to rebuild their economies.
  • 4. Land terms- Made to humiliate Germany and to satisfy Woodrow Wilson, who's 14 points consisted mainly of plans to make countries independent, which the land terms did. The alsace Lorraine term was also on both lists.
  • 5. The league of Nations- caused by the allies hope to keep the peace and unite Europe. This was also a Woodrow Wilson point, and he was the main cause for setting it up. Unfortunately, the allies hatred of Germany caused them to not let Germany join until they could show themselves to be 'peaceful'.

Effects

  • 1. They felt humiliated and wanted to get back at the allies. They hated the treaty immediately, because they knew that the war was not entirely their fault, and it caused a lot of resentment in Germany.
  • 2. Germany was once again humiliated over the amount of power that the allies had over them. They were unable to defend themselves, which made them feel vulnerable. This was the first point that Hitler smashed in his rise to power, which shows the effect it had on the German mindset.
  • 3. had a huge effect. Paying the allies caused the economic collapse of Germany, which meant that millions of Germans were starving. this caused great anger among the people, and resentment of the treaty, which Hitler eventually used to get into power.
  • 4. Made Germans angry, becuase they were suddenly all split up into different countries. Had the effect of the second world war, which was started when Hitler started trying to regain his territories. Added further to the economic crisis, as many factories and industries were lost with the land.
  • 5. Led to many disputes over the years (see LON failures) and Germany's exclusion from the league caused more anger, and meant that the one country the league could have been good for was alienated.

Overall summary

In conclusion, i think that although the causes for all these terms of the treaty were justified, they should probably have cut germany some slack, because the effects of the terms caused not just anger and resentment but a whole other war. Also a lot of the causes were to humiliate Germany, whci you could understand they wanted at the time, but in hindsight is really bad, because it just caused more trouble than it was worth.

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