I.  A New Imperialism

• Europe in the late 19th century
• In the last one-third of the 19th century, Europe spread her control over 10 million square miles and 150 million more people, representing one-fifth of the world's land and 10% of its total population
• What makes this new is that Europeans were no longer content to tax and administer an area as others had done before.  Instead, they actually tried to raise production and lower costs by applying western industrial and scientific methods
• Copper and tin, for example, were really part of a world trade and only incidentally part of an area's local economy
• After western science had improved tropical agriculture, westerners then worked to undermine it by developing synthetic rubber and a chemical form of quinine, for example, leaving underdeveloped areas of the world in the lurch.
• Beginnings of a New Imperialism
• The move toward imperialism began only late in the 19th century because most European countries had been stung by the loss of their overseas colonies, such as England with her American colonies and the Spanish with South America
• Moreover, Europeans had been influenced by the free trade ideas of Adam Smith that suggested colonies were not necessary
• Reasons for Imperialism
• Raw Materials and New Markets
• But now Europeans needed raw materials they simply could not produce at home to fuel the second industrial revolution, materials such as oil, rubber and rare metals
• The colonies were less important as markets because they simply were not rich enough to be good markets for the industrial manufactured goods Europe produced
• In fact, Europe's best customers were other industrialized countries
• Of course, huge profits were to be made overseas
• Ten to twenty per cent profit was not unknown, at a time when bank interest averaged 3 to 4%
• Need for Control
• But then European countries needed to protect these investments by establishing political control
• Investment of capital was more important for Britain than for France or Germany: France had more invested in Russia to stabilize a valuable ally, than she did in all her colonies combined
• Overpopulation not a factor in imperialism
• The settlement of overpopulation in colonies was also not very important
• Most excess Europeans went to North and South America or to Australia
• Between 1875 and 1914, 36 million Europeans emigrated, more than two thirds coming to the United States--largest migration in the history of the world
• But France was the second largest single receiver of immigrants in the world
• South America received rather few because those countries found it hard to create enough jobs to lure immigrants
• Medicine and imperialism
• Colony holding was also easier to do because of improvements in modern medicine
• By the early 20th century, mortality among British and French soldiers abroad decreased by 80%, due to immunization against typhoid, rehydration for cholera and ipecac for dysentery
• Problems still remained in tropical areas, primarily because tropical diseases are frequently caused by worms and protozoa to which one could not acquire immunity, whereas temperate climates had illnesses caused by viruses and bacteria to which one could become immune
• National Prestige, Nobility, and Imperialism
• A sense of excitement also drove Europeans into colonization, as did strategic concerns to protect the valuable colonies they already had
• Some colonies were there strictly for national prestige
• German colonies in Africa, for example, had almost no economic significance
• Some historians argue that imperialism also diverted attention from class conflicts at home and helped justify the emergence of the political right
• Most colonials were from the English gentry or French bourgeoisie who felt squeezed at home between industrialists and the urban proletariat
• They had gone to the colonies in the first place to be enlightened aristocrats, meaning they would not be interested in sharing power with the indigenous peoples
• Development of Imperial Rivalries
• As European countries competed for colonies abroad, rivalries emerged
• Britain and Russia
• One of the most important is the British-Russian rivalry
• We must remember that there was nothing inevitable about the British-Russian alliance in World War I and that the Germans knew and counted on it
• Britain was concerned to avoid Russian influence in the eastern Mediterranean
• To that end she fought the Crimean War, and in 1882, seized Egypt to avoid the loss of the Suez canal, a vital link to British colonies like India in the Indian Ocean
• Britain did not want Russian naval power out of the Black Sea either, and this meant British support for Greece
• The Russians responded by using pan-slavism to appeal to the slavic countries of eastern Europe, and especially to Serbia who already envisaged creating a Yugoslavia, or union of southern slavs on Greece's border
• British-Russian rivalry continued in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, a rivalry which only became more strident with the discovery of oil in the region
• Britain strengthened India to keep the Russians from moving farther south after Russia absorbed Georgia and the old khanates on her southern border
• Britain also gave aid to Tibet and Afghanistan to keep them from falling into the Russian orbit
• Only in 1907 was a general agreement worked out between Britain and Russia on spheres of influence, but it only suspended the rivalry momentarily in the face of a powerful Germany
• It would be taken up again following World War II with the United States stepping into British shoes and calling it the Cold War
• Imperialism in Africa
• Africa proved to be a place to play out imperial schemes without disturbing the peace of Europe
• In 1875, after centuries of contact, Europe had no more than 10% of African land
• Twenty-five years later, seven European nations controlled over 90% of the continent
• Africa was an economic gold mine, sometimes quite literally with gold in South Africa, diamonds, rubber, and coffee
• European divisions of Africa
• However, the divisions Europeans made in Africa for their convenience were made without reference to tribal divisions and without reference to tribal forms of government
• This sometimes meant that very hostile tribes would find themselves in the same country after it achieved its independence following World War II
• Europeans created caste systems, preferring Christians over animists for example, but they did not realize that the tribal system elected a leader by consensus and that such a leader had no right to speak for everyone
• The great number of political entities in Africa, 10,000 at least, meant that Europeans were able to take advantage to pit one group against another and so divide and conquer
• The Europeans also imported Indian and Syrian merchants to administer the economies of these areas, creating problems later when Africans asserted control of their own destinies and, in some cases like Uganda, kicked these non-Africans out
• Impact of Imperialism
• It is hard to evaluate imperialism because it is fraught with emotionalism today
• However, it seems fair to say that imperialism did create peace where intermittent warfare had existed before, and that it did advance the economies of the subject peoples as well as providing more effective public administration
• But this peace came at the price of expropriation of land and goods for the exclusive use of the imperialist elite
• Moreover, Europeans for the most part failed to train indigenous peoples to take over after them, and the Europeans were responsible for widespread destruction of cultural patterns
• Imperialism and ideas of war
• For our purposes here, imperialism also gave a very queer idea of war
• Wars in these far away places were too easy and were almost always won by the Europeans
• This queer idea of war helps to explain the ease with which Europe drifted into World War I

II.  Prelude to World War I

• Germany
• Bismarck
• After the Franco-Prussian War, Bismarck was convinced a military option was too dangerous, so he sought instead to build up an alliance system that would isolate France and thus prevent war
• He maintained cordial relations with Austria-Hungry and a formal understanding with Russia, but he counted on the antagonism between France and Britain and Britain and Russia to keep Britain out of the way
• Kaiser Wilhelm II who took the throne in 1888, however, dismissed Bismarck and took over the running of his own foreign policy
• He almost immediately created ill will with the Russian tsar, and France moved quickly to woo Russia with loans and arms purchases
• France and Russia signed an understanding which became a full alliance in 1894
• Britain vs. Germany
• At first Britain tried to conciliate Germany, feeling herself overextended as a result of the Boer War in South Africa, but rebuffed by the kaiser, Britain began to see Germany as a threat
• Naval Buildup
• She feared German domination of the continent, and when in 1898 Germany decided to build a navy larger than anyone elseís, Britain began to prepare for an eventual war with her
• Germany was building not only cruisers for defense, but also battleships for attack elsewhere
• Germany had long had the most powerful army on the continent, but the addition of a navy would allow her to transport that army over the Channel and attack Britain herself, or go worldwide and attack British colonies
• German naval supremacy threatened British livelihood as well, because the raw materials and finished goods critical to the British industrial revolution came and went by sea
• British Diplomacy
• with Japan--Britain broke her traditional diplomatic isolation to sign an alliance with Japan in 1902, freeing up her fleet to concentrate on Europe
• with France--in 1904, the British and French buried the hatchet and signed the Entente Cordial
• with Russia--in 1907, the British even signed an alliance with Russia, temporarily settling issues of spheres of influence between them
• German Reaction
• But this left Germany terrified of encirclement, with Britain and France on the one side and Russia on the other, and so Germany sought out her only reliable ally, Austria-Hungary to the south
• This would prove disastrous as Serbia in the Balkans was allied with Russia in one alliance system, but surrounded by Austria-Hungary in the other
• Entangling Alliances
• During this period, the major powers of Europe began forming alliances with one another
• These alliances called on the signees to come to each others' aid in the event of an attack on one
• The Triple Alliance--Britain, France, and Russia
• The Triple Entente--Germany, Austria-Hungary, (and later) Turkey (the Ottoman Empire)
• Austro-Hungarian Actions
• In 1908, Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, a area traditionally held by Turkey
• The latter, however, had just had a revolution which brought the Young Turks to power under Ataturk, and Austria-Hungary acted quickly before Turkish power could be brought to bear
• Following the disastrous Russo-Japanese War, Russia was in no position to stop the annexation, although she did protest loudly
• Serbs tried to get Austria-Hungary out of the area
• Serbia attempted to form Yugoslavia, the Union of Southern Slavs
• Austria-Hungary feared this revolutionary movement, having no intention of allowing Yugoslavia to be formed
• The Assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand
• In June, 1918, the heir to the Austrian throne, Archduke Ferdinand, and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia
• Austria decided to use this as an excuse to crush Serbia and its anti-Austrian propaganda once and for all
• She put forward a list of 21 demands after clearing the move with Germany whose young kaiser apparently did not think through what would happen to the giant European alliance system if Russia, in the other alliance system, chose to support Serbia
• Serbia agreed to 19 of the demands and agreed to negotiate the other two, but Austria claimed she was not satisfied and began to bomb Belgrade
• Oh what tangled webs alliances weave
• The Serbs called on Russia for help
• Russia responds
• The Russians had intended only to mobilize the part of her army directly bordering Austria-Hungary
• but all her battle plans had assumed a war with Germany and so she could not just mobilize one part of the army, but the entire thing, including the part next to Germany
• Germany has second thoughts
• Germany tried to back out of what was becoming a major war
• but Austria-Hungary held her to the alliance they had signed
• Schlieffen Plan
• The Germans had been willing to be reckless before, because they had a secret plan, the so-called Von Schlieffen plan, by which she could fight and win even a two front war
• The plan involved attacking France by going through Belgium, but keeping so close to the sea that the British would not be able to land reinforcements
• Russia would take three months to come to full mobilization, but by the time she did, France would have been defeated without British help and Russia would be facing not one half of the German army but the whole thing
• Rather than fight, Russia would surrender
• With the Russian mobilization begun, however, time was running out to put the Von Schlieffen plan into practice
• A terrified Germany, therefore, launched the attack on France to take advantage of the long period of Russian mobilization, and thus snapped the two alliance systems into action
• What was a minor incident in the Balkans had just become World War I
• Austria-Hungary had deliberately started the third Balkan war to survive against Serbian nationalism that threatened the shaky foundations of her polyglot empire
• Germany had goaded Austria-Hungary on, without realizing what could lay ahead and was responsible for turning a little war into a great war by attacking France through Belgium
• Worse, the Germans did not have enough faith in their battle plan and so did not stay close enough to the sea
• Britain landed reinforcements and together, British and French troops threw themselves before Paris, saving the city, and denying the Germans the quick victory over France they had assumed was theirs
• Almost all participants thought the war would be over quickly, within a few months at the very most
• Instead they found themselves enmeshed in the great meat grinder of World War I which would drag on for four years.

II.  World War I

• World War I was at heart about the balance of power on the European continent
• This was the main issue of the conflict, not economics or war guilt or breaking of treaties
• Germany and her allies were threatening the balance of power by arming themselves and threatening the borders of Europe, as she would do again in World War II
• In fact, some European historians now refer to this as the Great War, lumping what we call World Wars I and II together as a single violent period, punctuated by an uncertain peace in the middle
• It was the geographical position of Germany which gave her the edge, sitting as she does astride the flat plain of northern Europe while at the same time having access to the sea
• Allied strengths
• Troops
• Britain and her allies actually had more men under arms than did the Central Powers
• but this is less important than might appear, for most of those men, 12 million, were Russians who were poorly led and abysmally equipped
• Naval and Economic Power
• In fact, what may have turned the tide in the end was the British navy, which bottled up the German navy in the North and Baltic Seas
• This allowed Britain to open a lifeline to the rest of the world, resupplying herself and getting raw materials for her industrial revolution by sea, while Germany could not, trapped as she was in the waters close to home
• By prolonging the war, Britain could wear down Germany and make German stockpiles meaningless; the winter of 1916-17 was known in Germany as the Turnip Winter, because with her food supplies gone that was about all the Germans had to eat
• Moreover, the British navy helped keep the British economy strong by allowing industry to function and keeping the workers and the army fed; thus, neither the rebellions behind the lines due to starvation which the Germans had been counting on, nor the economic collapse of Britain occurred
• The domination of the British navy also allowed her to keep control of her far-flung colonies which could be resupplied by sea; thus, the colonial rebellions which would sap British will and resources never materialized either
• Fighting World War I
• World War I was not a war of movement, unlike World War II
• After a few weeks of dazzling maneuvers following the Schlieffen plan, the war settled down into trench warfare
• Trenches swept from the English Channel to Switzerland, producing a new kind of brutal war which emphasized attrition rather than liberation of territory
• The war thus produced enormous losses for very little gain
• In 1916, during the Battle of the Somme, Britain and France gained 125 square miles at a cost of 600,000 dead or wounded
• At Verdun, the Germans lost 500,000 men for 20 square miles
• One reason for such slaughter was the use of new types of weapons
• Improved artillery and the machine gun inflicted the most casualties
• Poison gas and air power were used primarily as weapons of terror
• Impact on European culture
• With such horrendous losses, the struggle became a war for control of people's minds, leading to the widespread use of propaganda
• Rubella became known for the first time as "German" measles, and many areas in France and Britain outlawed the playing of German classical music in the interests of national honor
• The war helped to kill off the aristocracy of Britain and France, as young aristocrats led their men in hopeless charges and were cut down as a result
• The war further gave a sense of honor and importance to the enlisted men; those who survived the horrors of the trenches demanded political and economic rights after the war was over
• Introduction of the Submarine
• With the naval war going in favor of the British, the most important new weapon introduced may have been the submarine
• With German supplies dwindling and with her navy blocked in the North Sea, Germany needed to cut the supply route Britain and France had opened with the United Sates, a lifeline which allowed them to hold on seemingly forever
• Thus, since she could not go through the British navy, the Germans were compelled to go under it, using a new weapon which violated the usual laws of naval conduct
• It proved devastatingly effective against allied shipping, at least until the convoy system was introduced in 1917 to cut losses and permit the shipment of the American army from the New World
• In fact, these submarines were directly responsible for bringing the United States into the war in the first place
• The United States
• Americans were officially neutral, but almost from the beginning public opinion both inside and outside the White House leaned in the direction of Britain and France
• The Americans did lend money and equipment to the allied countries, but these loans were a mirror of our national security interests
• simply put, we wanted the allies to win and were prepared to underwrite their economies to do so
• The weapons makers, the so-called "Merchants of Death," did not bring the United States into the war to salvage these loans
• arms, ammunition and munitions of war represented only 10% of American exports
• while 90% were in the form of food and raw materials like cotton for British mills
• In short, almost everyone in the United States benefited from trade with Europe
• But economics were not the main issue for Americans any more than they were for Europeans
• Germany represented the same threat to American interests as she had to others
• if Germany had been successful in winning the war, dominating the continent, and destroying the British navy, the United States would have been frozen out of Europe, one of our chief trading partners
• the US would perhaps have been called upon to vastly increase military spending to protect ourselves from a hostile Germany
• German intentions were clearly shown in the Zimmerman note, which promised the Mexican government major territorial concessions if she would declare war on us and pin the American army down in the New World as a result (there is great question as to the validity of the Zimmerman telegram today--British Intelligence coup)
• President Wilson wanted to remain neutral, but he steadily increased the definition of what was in fact neutral
• Were the Germans allowed to sink belligerent passenger ships?
• Only ships which resisted?
• Only ships on which there weren't any Americans?
• Unrestricted submarine warfare
• When the Germans in desperation declared unrestricted submarine warfare in January, 1917, to end the Turnip Winter and cut off supplies to Britain and France, war between the Germans and Americans became inevitable
• After eight merchant ships had been sunk by German submarines, the United States entered the war on April 6, 1917
• Wilson pitched the war as the Great Crusade to make the world safe for democracy, the war to end all wars
• But in doing so he promised more than he could ever deliver
• thus, he paved the way for great disillusionment when the war was over
• Russia
• The Eastern Front
• During 1914-1915, the Russians fought a relatively even war on the eastern front against the Germans and Austrians
• However, by 1916, Russian armies began to lose control of the situation
• The losses in the Russian armies were staggering--in some cases exceeding over 3 million men per year
• Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
• as a result, Russia backed out of the war with the humiliating treaty of Brest-Litovsk in early 1918
• According to this treaty, the Russians surrendered one million square miles, one-third of her arable land, one-third of her factories and three-quarters of her coal and iron deposits
• The final year of the war in the West
• With the Russians out of the way, Germany was free to push against the exhausted West, but by the time she got her troops to the western front in France, fresh new soldiers had arrived from the United States
• At the very end of the war, the allies used tanks to smash through the trenches, a lesson which would be learned to great effect by Fieldmarshal Erwin Rommel, who developed theories on tank warfare which he used so effectively against British North African forces in World War II
• The arrival of tanks and fresh American troops to the western front turned the tide
• Germany surrenders
• As the German general staff contemplated the war in 1918, they concluded they had lost, and so, they opened negotiations for a surrender
• Wilson insisted that the Kaiser would have to go, so the Weimar Republic was established when the Kaiser abdicated
• German allies withdrew from the war as well
• Thus the war came to an end at the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month in 1918.  It had killed between 10 and 13 million people, one third of whom were civilians
• And for every soldier killed, two or three had been wounded or maimed
• Impacts of the Great War
• For the first two years of the war, most soldiers and civilians supported their governments, in part because of propaganda
• By 1916, however, resolve began to crack
• At Home
• Strikes and protests over inadequate food struck both warring camps (particularly Germany--starvation became a real threat), and some troops just refused to fight at all, especially in France where a semi-dictatorship of Clemenceau was established in November, 1917
• In Ireland, Irish nationalists staged the Easter Rebellion in 1916, forcing the British to deal with their demands for independence while fighting Germany at the same time
• The war created inflation which wiped out middle class savings, leading to a right wing resurgence in the late twenties and thirties as the middle class demanded an end to inflation and depression
• Women's work during the war helped to cause governments to give women the right to vote, in Britain in 1918, in the United States in 1920
• Post-War impact
• War debt
• In 1914, Europe had been the world's greatest lender of money, but by 1918, its states were debtors, usually to the United States
• Paying off these loans would create resentment among the former allies in the 1920s
• Germans react
• Worse, as the war came to an end, the German people seemed unaware that their army had been defeated in the field
• After all, they saw no foreign soldiers on German soil and their leadership had not explained how dire their circumstances had become
• They expected a mild,  negotiated settlement, similar to the ones Europe normally prepared after wars
• But unlike the 18th century conflicts which had been fought almost exclusively by professional armies, or the Congress of Vienna where the landed aristocrats of Europe had rearranged the map of Europe to their pleasure,  World War I was fought with a draft system, meaning many people had suffered during the conflict and were looking for revenge when it was over
• Thus, the Treaty of Versailles, the Paris Peace treaty, was written after the war
• The Germans regarded it as a betrayal, and their sense of outrage helped lead to Adolph Hitler.

III.  Treaty of Versailles

• Basis of the Treaty
• In theory, the Treaty of Versailles was based on the Fourteen Points President Wilson put forward in January, 1918, before World War I was actually over
• The 14 points did shorten the war in that Germany agreed to surrender on the basis of them, but by announcing his peace program so far in advance, Wilson allowed those who disagreed with him to get ready to defeat the treaty
• Major points
• Among the most important 14 points was "Open covenants openly arrived at"
• This meant that the treaty was to be published in full (no secret codicils) and the negotiations to develop the treaty should be handled in public
• Freedom of the seas was ill-defined, but supposedly why the United States had entered the war in the first place
• Popular determinism meant letting the people decide what form of government they wanted, where they wanted borders drawn, etc
• And finally, the League of Nations would be created to enforce this peace
• Key Players at Versailles
• Wilson arrived in Paris in early 1919, to meet the major figures he would have to work with
• David Lloyd-George
• The conference was dominated by David Lloyd-George of Great Britain
• Himself a moderate, Lloyd-George had nonetheless just won election on the platform "hang the kaiser" which gave him little maneuvering room for compromise
• He was determined in any case to destroy the merchant and naval power of Germany which had threatened Britain in the first place, to get some of the German colonies and most important to make Germany pay for the war
• Clemenceau
• Clemenceau of France had lived through the Franco-Prussian war and thirsted for revenge on Germany as well as for greater security for France
• He wanted a defensive border on the Rhine river and a weak Germany
• He especially wanted guarantees from the United States to defend France in the event of a German attack
• Wilson
• Wilson was idealistic and had trouble dealing with two such seasoned veterans of European politics
• Most important, the president did not enjoy the support of the American Congress which had gone Republican in the November, 1918, elections
• That put Henry Cabot Lodge in charge of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee through which Wilson's treaty would have to pass to be ratified, but Wilson could not bring himself to take Lodge along
• In Europe, Wilson found himself greeted almost as a savior; he forgot his help was no longer needed, however
• The war was over, and while Europeans were grateful to the Americans, without whose help Britain and France would have surely lost the war, Wilson was in no position to dictate to the leaders of Europe
• Sensing this, Wilson prepared to appeal to the European peoples over the heads of their elected leaders
• Negotiations
• Even if Wilson had been more forthcoming, the Europeans would never have accepted the 14 points which they found naive if not plain dangerous
• Open covenants openly arrived at would mean negotiating in the open, which in turn would inevitably lead to grandstanding for political gain at home
• The Europeans might have been willing to accept open covenants secretly arrived at, but to accept open negotiations would result in the failure of those negotiations
• If talking failed, Europeans would be obliged to settle their disputes through war
• Freedom of the seas was left so vague that nobody knew exactly what it meant
• After all, the real question is what exactly goes free on the highs seas: passenger ships of neutral nations (which were clearly covered by international law), passenger ships of belligerent nations (which were not covered by international law but which Wilson had insisted on following the attack on the Lusitania), unarmed merchantmen?
• Popular determinism was an even greater fiasco according to the Europeans
• Most borders on the continent were artificial, creating countries comprised of many different ethnic and sectarian groups
• Yugoslavia, for example, created at the conference, was composed of six nation states who cordially detested one another
• Czechoslovakia, another creation, contained not only the Czechs and Slovaks who spoke different languages and which despised one another, but as well three and a quarter million Germans who wanted nothing more than to return to Germany
• Letting the people decide borders would result in ethnic strife and warfare, especially if the defeated party would not agree in advance to be bound by the results of an election
• The Europeans were willing to accept the League because they planned to use it to enforce what many came to see as an unjust peace on Germany
• Wilson called it the League covenant, a word used to describe a contract between a people and their god, leading one historian to call the treaty "less the 14 points than the Ten Commandments according to Wilson"
• Even Clemenceau joked that, "The Lord gave us Ten Commandments.  We broke them.  Mr. Wilson has given us 14 points. We shall see."
• The League reflected Wilson's ideas of collective security
• Wilson believed that any upset anywhere threatened world security
• This position is different from the one historically followed by the United States and virtually everybody else which states that some things are threats to security and must be dealt with, while others are more like annoyances rather than security threats and should be left to work themselves out, no matter how unfortunate they may be
• Article X bears out Wilson's interpretation
• It seems innocent enough: all League members agree to preserve a member nation's territorial integrity against aggression
• Theoretically, if a country knew that all the other countries in the world would attack her if she invaded a neighbor, aggression would cease
• But what if the country being attacked had no territorial integrity?
• Suppose it had just been created out of a variety of different ethnic groups, like Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia. What if it did not have defensible borders?
• Moreover, Lodge would later ask how the United States would get involved in any possible war caused when Americans  decided to protect another country's territorial integrity
• Would Congress be consulted as the constitution provides, or would troops be sent on the president's authority alone, and if the latter, how was that different from a dictatorship?
• The questions raised by Lodge caused the Senate of the United States not to ratify the treaty when Wilson brought it home in 1918
• However, the Americans continued to act in concert with the League even though not a member of it
• Failure to enter the League did not cause World War II
• The problem was that the peace that the League of Nations was enforcing was unjust to Germany in that it did not reflect battlefield conditions when the war ended, and after a period of time Germany simply stopped abiding by the treaty and war broke out again
• Terms of the Treaty
• The treaty may have been so severe because the participants hoped that their maximum provisions, taken to please the folks back home in the open negotiations, would be negotiated down later
• In fact, the treaty was written so quickly that the maximum terms were usually written into it
• Germany was dismembered in favor of Belgium and Denmark, ultimately losing here and elsewhere 10% of her prewar population and 13% of her prewar territory
• A demilitarized zone of 50 kilometers was created on the Rhine
• France had originally wanted 200 kilometers, but Wilson convinced them to accept only 50 in return for an American treaty guaranteeing the security of France
• (When the United States did not ratify the treaty, and France, which had, asked the Americans for her mutual defense pact the treaty promised, the United States reneged on her promise to provide one.)
• A Polish corridor was created between two pieces of Prussia so that the newly created Poland could have access to the sea at Danzig, a German city which was then internationalized (and later turned into Gdansk when it was turned over to Poland following World War II)
• German and Turkish colonies were made into League mandates and handed out to the victors; to those living in areas like Iraq and Palestine, however, this arrangement looked very much like being colonies again, only under different masters
• Germany was obliged to pay reparations
• She had already agreed to pay for damages suffered by the civilian population, but Britain and France demanded she pay for the pensions of all those hurt in the war as well, including widows and orphans
• That put the total at $33 billion which Germany could never repay
• The German army was cut to 100,000, the same size as that of the United States, but this move had the effect of throwing out of work thousands of German soldiers into the postwar depression that gripped Germany
• Without work and with bills to pay, they nursed their anger against the Weimar Republic which they accused of stabbing them in the back
• France, feeling betrayed by both Britain and the United States, turned the League into an instrument for maintaining the status quo and for assuring French dominance of Europe
• Most important, the treaty had not dealt with the real cause of the war--what do you do with a united Germany capable of dominating Europe?
• At the end of World War II, the victors decided the question by disuniting Germany between East and West
• At Versailles, however, they wrote the worst possible treaty: one that hurt Germany badly enough to make her want revenge, but not badly enough to keep her from getting it