The Tragedy of The Treaty of Versailles
by An article looking at the failure of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 to bring a lasting world peace.
The Treaty of Versailles that officially ended the Great War of 1914-1918 was a terrible tragedy because it did nothing to promote world stability; rather, it made a second world conflict inevitable. Indeed, the Treaty failed to rehabilitate the defeated states such as Germany and restore them to the community of nations. The Congress of Vienna that was signed in 1815 and officially ended the Napoleonic Wars had effectively settled the affairs of Europe for a century. In contrast, the Treaty of Versailles brought a cessation of hostilities for a mere two decades. As Marshal Foch said, it was not really a peace, but an Armistice for twenty years.
The terms of the Treaty laid the burden of guilt and responsibility for World War One squarely on the shoulders of Germany and its allies. The Germans were expected to make huge reparations payments, reduce their army to 100,000 men and cede territory to the newly emerged state of Poland. All this severely weakened the German economy and undermined the authority of the newly constituted Wiemar Government. It also made the message preached by the radical left and right more attractive to the German people. Indeed, the injustice of the Treaty of Versailles helped pave the way for the rise of Hitler and the Nazis who won widespread support by promising to avenge the humiliation and restore Germany to greatness.
Aside from Germany, the breakup of the Austrian Empire and the recognition of the independence of various territories that had been part of the Russian Empire created a lot of small weak states in central and Eastern Europe. These emerging countries also did little to promote the stability of Europe because they were often politically and economically unstable and increasingly liable to fall prey to fascism or communism.
Moreover, even some of the victorious powers found the Treaty of Versailles unappealing. Italy for instance was denied certain parts of the Austrian Empire and the resentment felt at this slight aided the rise of Mussolini and the fascists who eventually allied themselves with Nazi Germany. In England both the economist John Maynard Keynes and the historian Harold Nicholson considered the Treaty of Versailles a failure that did little to promote prosperity and world peace.
Even a supposedly positive aspect of the Treaty, namely, the creation of the League of Nations failed because it was not strong enough to fulfill its goal of preventing war. Indeed, from the outset the League was hampered by the non-participation of the United States and the fact that it had no military forces under its command.
In retrospect, the Treaty of Versailles was one of humanity’s greatest mistakes because it sowed the seeds of a second world conflict that cost even more lives that the first. The tragedy of Versailles was that it could have been avoided if the defeated had been treated more generously and rehabilitated rather than punished. Fortunately, after World War Two the Marshall Plan helped Germany and Japan rebuild their shattered economies and this assisted them become modern stable democracies. If Europe had been rebuilt in the same fashion in the years following 1919 the history of the twentieth century would indeed have been very different.
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