The Treaty of Versailles marked the end of the war that caused the deaths of over 40 million people.  The conflicts that began the Great War were numerous as they were complicated.  Even as Britain, France, and the United States emerged victorious from such devastation, new conflicts arose.  The task of drawing up a peace treaty that would prevent future wars and officially end the current one was left to the leaders of the victorious nations.  The peacemakers tried very hard to make a treaty that would satisfy all nations, however, they made many mistakes within the treaty, and did not attend to some of the more important matters with enough attention.  The Treaty of Versailles was the root cause of World War II because of the many flaws throughout the document.           

First and foremost, the peacemakers started by redrawing the maps of Europe.  They broke up the weak and defeated empires into many small countries.  Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Caucasus, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia all emerged onto the European map after the treaty was done redrawing the borders (MacMillan).  The peacemakers did not take into account the various ethnic groups within each country and many of these countries contained large amounts of Germans who wanted to rejoin Germany.  The many different minority groups within each nation created civil unrest that often destabilized the new countries.  On top of it all, these new nations were not given a very good form of government in which to stabilize their society on.  The primitive form of government used by these new nations caused for these countries to be very weak, and made them prime targets to be conquered by a stronger nation in years to come.

Germany was given a more viable government system than the new nations.  The Weimar Republic replaced the old monarchy.  The republic, drawn up with the guidance of Max Weber, was made to “embody all the best features of the American constitution.  But it had one serious weakness.  The president, elected for a seven-year term, was not the head of the government: that was the chancellor, a party figure responsible to parliament.  But the President, under Article 48, was endowed with emergency powers when parliament was not in session.  From 1923 onwards this article was perversely invoked whenever parliament was deadlocked. And parliament was often deadlocked, because proportional representation prevented the development of a two-party system and absolute majorities” (Johnson).  This system made it so that whenever parliament was jammed, the president could behave similar to a dictator.  The instability created by having both democracy and near dictatorship at the same time caused dissatisfaction among some of the German citizens.  The dissatisfaction led to the formation of several political parties that called for government reform (most notable being the Nazi party).  Fortunately, the Weimar Republic had done well until 1929, but once the depression hit and the Weimar Republic failed miserably, the German people looked towards the person that was giving them the answers to their problems.  The Nazi party was able to gain immense popularity during the depression, by promising jobs, and stability to the people.  If the Treaty of Versailles had provided the Germans with a better government, then the depression would not have been as bad and the Nazi party would never have taken power.

One of the major faults of the Treaty of Versailles was to put Germany in such a bad economic situation.  The victorious allies forced the Germans to pay massive reparations in war debts and they also “placed severe restrictions on Germany’s right to rebuild its industries and its armies. By 1930, Germany was suffering from widespread unemployment, runaway inflation, and a national currency that was just about worthless” (Terrill).  The Treaty’s destruction of the German economy was one of the reasons that the Weimar Republic failed and also the reason for the Nazi party’s rise to power.  If the treaty had not damaged the German economy to such an extent, then the Weimar Republic might have succeeded, and World War II could have been avoided.

Factors that were not directly the fault of the treaty can still be indirectly traced back to the roots of the treaty.  For instance, the remilitarization of the Rhineland was due to France’s inability to act, however, if the treaty had been more thorough, then it would have put more than just France in charge of keeping the German military out of the Rhineland.  Also the peacemakers should have given the German people the facts about war guilt rather than assume that the German people would be told by their government.

If the Treaty of Versailles had been more thorough and if there had not been as many flaws, then it would have been able to prevent the outbreak of World War II.  The Treaty of Versailles was unsuccessful at redrawing the map of Europe, setting up workable political systems for new and old nations (especially Germany), and at creating economic stability.  The treaty was the root cause of World War II, because it contained many mistakes that were the direct or indirect cause of new conflicts that would eventually lead to the next World War.