The Treaty of Versailles played a major role in causing the rise of fascism in Germany and creating conflicts which later led to World War II because of the way in which it was implemented and reinforced by Germany, creating a weak Germany fragile to conflicts. After the end of World War I, many countries remained unsatisfied with the results of The Treaty of Versailles, especially Germany. Germany had lost the war and so the treaty took several measures in relation to what should be done to the country. Germany was extremely resentful towards the treaty and so it tried to ignore it. This denial of what was happening to the country created a weak Germany open to fascism and to the start of another war. The steps that led to the conflict in Europe 1914 involved historical conflicts and issues, the formation of alliances, colonial rivalries, an arms race, Balkan instability, and the July crisis. As tensions rose between the two sides formed previous to the war, the point was reached when any minor action from one side against the other would spark the beginning of a physical war. This was the case of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, which brought the Triple Alliance and Triple Entente to the brink of war. World War I resulted in territorial reduction as a conclusion of the Treaty of Versailles and in economic destruction within Europe. The Allied victory over Germany led to a meeting at Versailles between Wilson, Clemenceau,George, and Orlando. Among the topics discussed at this meeting was that of what would happen to the territories of Europe, especially Germany, and who would gain or lose what. The war itself, however, also left Europe in great economic destruction. The main terms of The Treaty of Versailles were: the surrender of all German colonies as League of Nations mandates, the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France, cession of Eupen-Malmedy to Belgium, Memel to Lithuania, the Hultschin district to czechoslovakia, Poznania, parts of East Prussia and Upper Silesia to Poland, Danzig to become a free city, plebiscites to be held in northern Schleswig to settle the Danish-German frontier, occupation and special status for the Saar under French control and demilitarization; a fifteen-year occupation of the Rhineland.
MAp & Chart-
quotes-
“I cannot conceive any greater cause of war than that the German people, who have certainly proved themselves one of the most vigorous and powerful races in the world, should be surrounded by a number of small States, many of them consisting of people who have never previously set up a stable system of government for themselves, but each of them containing large masses of Germans clamouring for reunion with their native land. The proposal of the Polish commission that we should place 2,100,000 Germans under the control of a people which is of a different religion and which has never proved its capacity for stable self-government throughout its history must, in my judgment, lead to a new war in the East of Europe . . .”
Lloyd George
Prime Minister of England, March 25, 1919
“Our Allies and our enemies and Mr. Wilson should all understand that Mr. Wilson has no authority to speak for the American people at this time. His leadership has just been emphatically repudiated by them. Mr. Wilson and his Fourteen Points and his four supplementary points and his five complementary points and all his utterances every which way have ceased to have any shadow of right to be accepted as expressive of the will of the American people.”
Lloyd George
Prime Minister of England, March 25, 1919
Lloyd George
Prime Minister of England, March 25, 1919
“Our Allies and our enemies and Mr. Wilson should all understand that Mr. Wilson has no authority to speak for the American people at this time. His leadership has just been emphatically repudiated by them. Mr. Wilson and his Fourteen Points and his four supplementary points and his five complementary points and all his utterances every which way have ceased to have any shadow of right to be accepted as expressive of the will of the American people.”
Lloyd George
Prime Minister of England, March 25, 1919