Transcript End of WWI and the Treaty of Versailles

End of WWI and the Treaty of
Versailles
End of the War
• November 11, 1918 (11th month, 11th day, 11th
hour) – agree to an armistice – a cease fire
– Now celebrated as Veteran’s Day
– Wilson gave workers the day off
• Kaiser was en route to exile in the Netherlands
• A young soldier named Adolf Hitler was
overwhelmed – “all had been in vain”
Wilson the Peacemaker
• A southern lawyer, President of Princeton University
(only President to hold a PhD)
• Democrat – elected in 1912, reelected in 1916
• Wilson’s 14 Point Peace Plan
– Self-determination: same language people should rule
themselves and create the end of empires
– Wilson’s favorite point was the League of Nations which
would be an international ruling body and enforce
international law
• Wilson wet to Europe to be involved with the Paris
Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles
The Big Three
• American President Wilson – belief that
democracy is the way of the future
• British Prime Minister Lloyd-George – didn’t
want to be lenient on Germany
• French Premier Clemenceau – wanted to
punish Germany and didn’t have much faith in
Wilson
Hammering Out the Treaty
• The Italians went home after Wilson tried to
appeal to the Italian people while France received
a promise that the U.S. and Great Britain would
aid France in case of another German invasion.
• Japan also wanted the valuable Shantung
peninsula and the German islands in the Pacific,
and Wilson opposed, but when the Japanese
threatened to walk out, Wilson compromised
again and let Japan keep Germany’s economic
holdings in Shantung, outraging the Chinese.
Details of the Treaty of Versailles
• Conflicting ambitions ruled the conference.
Britain and France wanted to punish Germany,
Italy wanted money, the U.S. wanted to heal
wounds through Wilson’s League of Nations
– Wilson’s baby was the League and so he
bargained with Britain and France.
– Britain and France agreed to go along with
the League, Wilson reluctantly agreed to go
along with punishment.
Details of the Treaty of Versailles
• New Countries
– Russia loses Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, part of
Poland
– Austria lose Czech, Hungary
• Hungary also lost a lot of territory
– Poland is resurrected and reestablished
– Czechoslovakia is created
• People who speak Czech and Slovak, but they
understand each other
– Yugoslavia - a kingdom of Serbs, Croats, Slovenes
Details of the Treaty of Versailles
• Provisions against Germany
– German army restricted to 100,000 men (small army =
less of a threat)
– Forbidden to have an air force
– Forbidden to have submarines
– Lost their colonies – Japan got them for coming to the
Allied side during the war
– Rhineland
• Western bank on the Rhine River was demilitarized in 1930
– Polish Corridor
• Gives Poland access to the Baltic Sea in city of Danzig
Article 231
• States that Germany is responsible for WWI
• The Germans saw it as a War Guilt Clause
– it formally placed blame on Germany, a proud
and embarrassed people, and
• It charged Germany for the costs of war, $33
billion (reparations)
• Germany won the “battle of ideas”
– Promoted the fact that they had never been defeated
– Spread the idea that the Treaty of Versailles was an
awful thing
– Never pay the reparations – pay it by borrowing!
The Peace Treaty That Bred a New
War
• The Treaty of Versailles was forced upon Germany
under the threat that if it didn’t sign the treaty, war
would resume
• When the Germans saw all that Wilson had
compromised to get his League of Nations, they cried
betrayal, because the treaty did not contain much of
the Fourteen Points like the Germans had hoped it
would.
• Wilson was not happy with the treaty, sensing that it
was inadequate, and his popularity was down, but he
did make a difference in that his going to Paris
prevented the treaty from being purely imperialistic.
Reparations
United
States
REPAY WAR DEBT
LOANS
France &
Great Britain
Germany
REPARATIONS
Problems
• Italy – Did not get the respect or what they
wanted out of the treaty
• Russia/Soviet Union (now in revolution) never
signed the Treaty of Versailles
• United States never signed the Treaty of Versailles
– Congress never agreed on a plan that would
potentially take away their war making powers
– As a result, the League of Nations was a much weaker
body
• Left England and France as only signees and they
will become supporters of appeasement
Enough Blame to Go Around
• U.S. isolationism doomed the Treaty of
Versailles and indirectly led to World War II
– France, without an ally, built up a large military
force
– Germany, suspicious and fearful, began to
illegally do the same.
• The suffering of Germany and the disorder of
the time was used by Adolf Hitler to seize
power in Germany, build up popularity, and
drag Europe into war.
Enough Blame to Go Around
• It was the U.S.’s responsibility to take charge
as the most powerful nation in the world after
World War I
– But it retreated into isolationism, and let the rest
of the world do whatever it wanted in the hopes
that the U.S. would not be dragged into another
war
– Ironically, it was such actions that eventually led
the U.S. into WWII.