Thursday, August 20, 2015

What articles in the Treaty of Versailles foreshadowed WWII?

The Treaty of Versailles has been viewed for a long time as being a major cause of the Second World War. The link between the treaty and the outbreak of the war is undoubtedly Hitler and the strong rhetoric he used on the election campaign trail to protest the unfairness of the treaty to the German people. It was this rhetoric that so caught the imagination of the the Germans to elect Hitler and the Nazis.
One specific article which enraged the German people was Article 231 which assigned blame for the war and reparations to the Germans. Most Germans believed that the war was not their fault but rather due to Russian aggression and French arrogance. Furthermore the imposition of reparations with unlimited indemnity hobbled the German economy for years to come.
Other articles of the treaty to cause anger were 42 to 77 which stripped territorial possessions from Germany and gave them to their neighbors to the east and west, the return of Alsace and Lorraine being a particular issue for Germany. Article 160 reduced the German military to a shell and made most Germans feel that they could be attacked at any time and have little defense.
One final outcome of the Treaty of Versailles which can be argued led to the Second World War was the creation of the League of Nations and the subsequent failure of the United States to join. This isolationist approach by the US emboldened the Axis Powers in the 1930's and undoubtedly contributed to the start of hostilities.
Certainly no one aspect of the Treaty of Versailles led to the Second World War, however the combination of excessive punishment for Germany and a weak global security created int he conditions in which the Germans, Italians and Japanese embraced extremism and eventually conflict.


The Treaty of Versailles, signed by Germany and the Allied Powers in 1919, ended World War I. One article that many believe helped lead to World War II was Article 231, the so-called "War Guilt Clause." This clause stipulated that Germany had to accept the responsibility for causing the losses that the Allies suffered in the war. While the clause did not directly state that Germany caused the war, Germans read the article in that way. The clause did, however, set up a system of reparations that Germany had to pay to the Allies. The result was that Germans were humiliated and felt that the onus of the war rested unfairly on them. The Weimar Republic had the burden of explaining and rationalizing this clause to the German people, and Hitler used German resentment about this clause to help cause the downfall of the Weimar Republic and pave his path to power.
In addition, other articles in the treaty restricted Germany's territory. For example, Article 42 forbade Germany from constructing any fortifications along the Rhine. In Article 45, Germany had to give up all coal production in the Saar Basin to France. Germany had to renounce other territories as well, and these articles also enflamed German resentment in the years after World War I. These stipulations hurt German pride and made the Germans more amenable to the promises of the diabolical Hitler, who promised a return to German territorial expansion and to nationalistic pride.
http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/versa/versa7.html

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