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Treaty of Versailles and the USA
The Treaty of Versailles was the peace agreement that officially ended World War I. The United States played a significant role in the negotiations but ultimately did not ratify the treaty. The U.S. Senate rejected the treaty due to concerns about the League of Nations and the potential impact on American sovereignty.
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No longer available |Learn more- (Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- College Publishing House(Publisher)
________________________ WORLD TECHNOLOGIES ________________________ Chapter 6 Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of World War I were dealt with in separate treaties. Although the armistice signed on 11 November 1918 ended the actual fighting, it took six months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. The treaty was registered by the Secretariat of the League of Nations on October 21, 1919, and was printed in The League of Nations Treaty Series. Of the many provisions in the treaty, one of the most important and controversial required Germany to accept sole responsibility for causing the war and, under the terms of articles 231–248 (later known as the War Guilt clauses), to disarm, make substantial territorial concessions and pay reparations to certain countries that had formed the Entente powers. The total cost of these reparations was assessed at 132 billion Marks (then $31.4 billion, £6,600 million) in 1921 which is roughly equivalent to US$ 382 billion in 2010, a sum that many economists at the time deemed to be excessive because it would have taken Germany until 1988 to pay. The Treaty was undermined by subsequent events starting as early as 1932 and was widely flouted by the mid-1930s. The result of these competing and sometimes conflicting goals among the victors was compromise that left none contented: Germany was not pacified or conciliated, nor permanently weakened. This would prove to be a factor leading to later conflicts, notably and directly the Second World War. Negotiations Negotiations between the Allied powers started on 18 January in the Salle de l'Horloge at the French Foreign Ministry, on the Quai d'Orsay in Paris.
No longer available |Learn more- (Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- University Publications(Publisher)
________________________ WORLD TECHNOLOGIES ________________________ Chapter- 6 Treaty of Versailles Treaty of Versailles Treaty of Peace between the Allied and Associated Powers and Germany Cover of the English version Signed Location 28 June 1919 Versailles, France Effective Condition 10 January 1920 Ratification by Germany and three Principal Allied Powers. Signatories German Reich British Empire France Italy Japan United States Other Allied Powers ________________________ WORLD TECHNOLOGIES ________________________ Unofficial Ally Belgium Depositary French Government Languages French, English The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of World War I were dealt with in separate treaties. Although the armistice signed on 11 November 1918 ended the actual fighting, it took six months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. The treaty was registered by the Secretariat of the League of Nations on October 21, 1919, and was printed in The League of Nations Treaty Series. Of the many provisions in the treaty, one of the most important and controversial required Germany to accept sole responsibility for causing the war and, under the terms of articles 231–248 (later known as the War Guilt clauses), to disarm, make substantial territorial concessions and pay reparations to certain countries that had formed the Entente powers. The total cost of these reparations was assessed at 132 billion Marks (then $31.4 billion, £6,600 million) in 1921 which is roughly equivalent to US$ 382 billion in 2010, a sum that many economists at the time deemed to be excessive because it would have taken Germany until 1988 to pay.
eBook - PDFAmerica and the Great War
1914 - 1920
- D. Clayton James, Anne Sharp Wells(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
By a joint resolution in July 1921, four months after Wilson left office, Congress declared an end to the war with Germany and Austria-Hungary, reserving for the United States all rights secured by the armistice, the Versailles Treaty, or as a result of the war. That October, separate United States peace treaties were ratified with Germany, Austria, and Hungary. These pacts confirmed that all the rights and advantages the Allies had obtained at Paris per-tained also to the United States, though America was not obligated to implement or enforce the peace agreements. The United States did not join the League of Nations. Thus a disappointed and frustrated Wilson laid down the mantle of internationalism, which would not be assumed by another American president until Frank-lin D. Roosevelt. End of an Era The years immediately following World War I were characterized in the United States by an increasingly negative attitude. Most of the American people appeared relieved to be free again from war, from Europe's distresses, and from commitments to any major in-ternational responsibilities. At home they seemed ready to aban-don the progressive reforms that had engendered such excitement since the tum of the century. Political candidates often found favor with the voters if they advocated reducing the size of the federal government and lessening its controls on the growth of affluence. CHAPTER FOUR 91 The nation appeared to be on the threshold of a wild era of ram-pant materialism that would nearly demolish any lingering ideals of progressivism or internationalism. It was not unexpected perhaps that such public sentiments would focus first on returning the military establishment to the vir-tual impotence it had endured during the decades between past American wars. The American armed forces, which had peaked at nearly 4.4 million personnel in late 1918, were cut to 344,000 by 1920.
eBook - ePub- Stephen J. Lee(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
2VERSAILLES AND ITS IMPACT, 1919–33
BACKGROUND
Germany signed an armistice with the Allies on 11 November 1918. From this point onwards, negotiations for a peace settlement were carried out between the Allies in Paris, within the format of the Council of Ten. Most of the work was done by President Wilson of the United States, Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, and Clemenceau, the French Premier. A preliminary draft of the arrangements concerning Germany was sent to the German government, but any attempts made by the new Republic to change the terms were rejected.The Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919. It affirmed, by Article 231, the responsibility of Germany and her Allies for the outbreak of the First World War and accordingly made provision tor territorial adjustments, demilitarisation and economic compensation to the victorious Allies for the losses they had incurred. Germany was deprived of Alsace—Lorraine, Eupen and Malmédy, Northern Schleswig, Posen, West Prussia, parts of southern Silesia, and all her overseas colonies. Limits were placed upon her naval capacity, her army was restricted to 100,000 volunteers, and the Rhineland was demilitarised. A considerable quantity of rolling-stock and merchant shipping was also removed, while France was given exclusive rights to the coal mines in the Saar region. Finally, provision was made for the payment of reparations by the German government, the total amount eventually being fixed in 1921 at 136,000 million gold marks.The terms caused considerable resentment within Germany and contributed to the spiralling inflation which undermined the economy between 1921 and 1923. Attempts were made to regularise the payment of reparations by the Dawes Plan (1924) and the Young Plan (1929); the result was to spread the load, extend the deadlines and provide American investments. Following the impact of the Great Depression, most of the reparations were finally cancelled at Lausanne in 1932. The military and territorial terms of the Treaty were undermined by the unilateral action taken by Hitler after 1933.
eBook - PDFWar, Peace and International Security
From Sarajevo to Crimea
- Jan Eichler(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
The Trianon Peace Treaty with Hungary from 4 June 1920 had the same basic principle as the above-mentioned treaties with Germany, and Austria-Hungary was identified as one of the countries that caused the First World War, and it was also subjected to two basic negative conditions. Article no. 104 stated that the total number of people in the Hungarian 48 J. EICHLER Armed Forces should not exceed 35,000 men, and Article no. 161 ordered that Hungary would have to participate in post-war reparations. 2.2.4 Basic Features of the Post-war International Order World War I resulted in a change of borders and the disappearance of two great empires (Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire). On their former territories new states were created, namely the Czechoslovak Republic and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Yugoslavia from October 1929). Germany was also penalized by its loss of Alsace and Lorraine (which were given back to France) and the region of Eupen and Malmedy (which became part of Belgium). In favor of Poland Germany had to also vacate West Prussia, Pomerania and Poznanski. Other penalties imposed on it were the occupation of the Ruhr indus- trial region, the abolition of its conscription and the cap on the number of its soldiers. Germany also had to dissolve its General Staff indefinitely, and it could not own or produce any heavy weapons, aircraft or large warships. Keynes’ analogy of the Versailles Treaty and the Carthaginian peace is generally known (Keynes 1920). E. Carr even claims that the Versailles Treaty was a “dictated peace” (Carr 1985). Another weakness of the Treaty was its voluntary omission of two large and important states: the USA and Russia. The former was not engaged in it due to the then appli- cable policy of isolationism (Gaddis 2004), and the latter was not engaged in it because the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia and considered the entire arrangement “an imperialist and, therefore, an unjust peace” (Carr 1985).
eBook - PDF- Keith Eubank(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
In May 1919, the treaty terms were presented to the German delegation, which was allowed to reply in writ ing but not to negotiate. Living in their dream world, unconscious of the hatred accumulated during the war, the delegation was shocked by the terms presented to them. But the Weimar government had little choice other than to a ccept the terms . A renewal of the war, the German generals advised, could bring an end to both the Ger- 1918 -1933 / 5 North Sea Former German Terrltorv I i 100 2 00 kilometers man army and German unity. In the Palace of Versailles onJune 28,1919, the German delegation signed the Treaty of Versailles-but it is now evident that the German nation never intended to abide by it. The terms of the treaty tract been designed to render Ger -many helpless forever. The army was limited to 100,000 offic-ers and soldiers serving a twelve-year term of enlistment; military conscription was forbidden; the General Staff was dissolved; military schools we re restricted, th e manufacture of arms and munitions was curtailed, and the export and import of them were forbidden; the navy was reduced and the air force outlawed. An Allied military control commission would supervise disarmament. 6 / CHAPTER 1 Germany was stripped of its colonies and was forced to cede territory to Denmark, Belgium, France, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. To give Poland an outlet to the Baltic Sea, East Prussia was detached by a strip of land that became known as the Polish Corridor, an area tha t includ ed Danzig, which would be a free city under League of Nations admin i stration. Not only. would the Rhineland be occupied by Allied troops for fifteen years to ensure comp l iance with the terms of t he treaty, but it would be permanently demilitarized-no German troops, no military weapons, no fortifications . The Saar area would be under the League of Nations for fifteen years after which a plebiscite would decide the final control.
- Gordon Martel(Author)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
It also joined the Permanent Court of International Justice in 1935, and a string of distinguished American jurists sat on its bench from 1922. The absence of the United States from the reparation commission undoubtedly contrib-uted to the harshness of its fi nal recommenda-tions, and the subsequent crises caused by it, but the United States then fully engaged in helping to fi nd solutions. As the United States State Department later observed of the Versailles settlement, “The treaty touched in one way or another almost every ques-tion that had come on to the international scene in the period before the war which it ended, and it attempted to deal with many phases of ques-tions newly recognized to be important.” 18 The complexity of the task confronting the peacemak-ers in 1919 was immense. There was a need to settle the immediate issues of the war and the opportunity was simultaneously taken to address wider issues at what was the largest diplomatic gathering ever convened. The object of the system created was to bring a greater degree of govern-ance to international relations. The system had many flaws and was perhaps a faltering step toward greater international stability, but it was an impor-tant step on the road to that goal. NOTES 1 Harold Nicolson, Peacemaking 1919 (Boston: Houghton Miffl in, 1933), p. 32. 2 Department of State, The Treaty of Versailles and After: Annotations on the Text of the Treaty (Wash-ington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1947), pp. iii–iv. 3 Gustav Stresemann, Essays and Speeches on Various Subjects (London: Butterworth, 1930), p. 238. 4 Gustav Stolper et al., German Economy, 1870 to the Present (New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1967), p. 154. 5 Quoted in Lord d’Abernon, An Ambassador of Peace: Lord d’Abernon’s Diary (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1929), vol. 2, p. 167. 6 Treaty of Paris between France and Prussia, Sep-tember 8, 1808; Treaty of Vienna between France and Austria, October 27, 1809.
eBook - PDFBelligerents, Brinkmanship, and the Big Stick
A Historical Encyclopedia of American Diplomatic Concepts
- John M. Dobson(Author)
- 2009(Publication Date)
- ABC-CLIO(Publisher)
Washington, DC: GPO, 1969, 2:51. respect and preserve as against external aggression” all member states. The Versailles Peace Treaty that Wilson subsequently submitted to the U.S. Senate for ratification contained the League Covenant. Opponents claimed that Article Ten might draw the United States into a conflict, a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s granting to Congress the responsibility for declar- ing war. Although many other objec- tions to the treaty and the league arose, Article Ten was most influential in con- vincing a majority of senators to reject the document. In doing so, they also guaranteed that the United States would not become a member of the league. Republican senator Warren G. Harding participated in the ratification debates prior to his election as president in 1920. Even though Charles Evans Hughes, the man whom he named secretary of state, and other prominent Republicans advo- cated league membership, Harding bowed to pervasive isolationist pressures and refused to consider it. That presented Hughes with a problem when he received letters from the league, now established in Geneva, Switzerland. He initially chose to have no contact at all with the organization and refused even to acknowledge its existence. Within a few years, the U.S. position eased. The State Department began for- mally acknowledging league communi- cations. When the organization took up issues such as the international trade in slaves and opium, the United States sent nonvoting delegates to observe the pro- ceedings. For some time, these represen- tatives did not even speak at meetings, but, by the late 1920s, Americans were taking active roles in discussions of non- political matters, such as communica- tions, trade, and counterfeiting, that affected all nations. The delegates took great pains, however, to avoid commit- ting the United States to any action that might be seen as direct cooperation with league initiatives.
eBook - PDFThe Versailles Treaty and its Legacy
The Failure of the Wilsonian Vision
- Norman A. Graebner, Edward M. Bennett(Authors)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
The Versailles Treaty and Its Legacy 246 as well as the international status of the powers that made it. Not without reason, Harry Hopkins feared that another Munich would be fatal to the democracies. 90 For him, as for others, the real issue of August 1939 was not Poland but the future of Europe. Germany’s invasion of Poland, on September 1, assigned Versailles’s entire territorial, legal, and moral order, not merely Poland, to the vagaries of war. Whether a peaceful settlement of the Danzig issue would have eliminated war was doubtful. Hitler’s territorial ambitions included Germany’s eastward expansion. But from the beginning of his rise to power over Germany and his threatening role in European politics, Hitler and much of his country shared the single determination to consign the territorial and military clauses of the Versailles Treaty to history. That settlement, to achieve longevity, required the full recognition of the established interests of all, including those of Germany. Now Europe would pay the full price of the 1919 Paris decisions that failed to pass this essential test. Throughout the August crisis, Roosevelt avoided any commitments to Europe’s contestants. Europe would fight its own war. Fundamentally, Roosevelt and his advisers viewed the events of August from afar as well- informed spectators. Hull described the flow of communications from the country’s diplomats as the crisis deepened after August 26: “Cables from all the major capitals of Europe were now streaming to my desk. Ambassadors Kennedy and Bullitt were frequently on the trans-Atlantic telephone to the White House and the State Department. We followed with minute care and tenseness each development. . . .” 91 Bullitt’s reporting was exceptional, enhanced by his close relations with Daladier. “I have seen Daladier constantly and intimately through this crisis.” Bullitt explained to Roosevelt on August 29.
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