Treaty of Versailles. Treaty of Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles, concluded between the countries of the Entente and the Triple Alliance in 1919, determined the conditions for ending the First World War for each of the warring parties.

At the beginning of the 20th century, tension gradually increased in the world. Each of the major European powers wanted to strengthen their positions, acquire new territories and expand their zone of influence. Both the Entente countries (based on three powerful powers: Russia, France and England) and the Triple Alliance (Germany, Bulgaria, Austria-Hungary) had territorial claims. Later, most European countries became involved in the war.

Bloody battles and diseases claimed the lives of almost 10 million people and injured 20 million. The war began in 1914 and ended only in 1919. The Treaty of Versailles, signed on June 28 at the Palace of Versailles, put an end to it. However, the terms of the treaty turned out to be such that it was clear to the political leaders of the states that in the near future the world should expect a new war. The “offended” party under the terms of the Versailles Agreement was Germany, which, instead of a dominant position, fell back into the position of a controlled state, deprived of even the opportunity to have its own regular army.

The results of the war for Germany under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles

The German Empire was no longer a powerful power. The country lost:

• colonial lands in Africa;
• the Pacific Islands under its control;
• benefits and privileges in Thailand;
• fleet, airships, railway transport (all this was to be transferred to the Entente countries);
• its army and military aviation;
• coal mines of the Saar basin;
• the city of Danzig (which came under the control of the League of Nations).

The Entente received the right to a 15-year occupation of the left bank of the Rhine. This was due to the need to monitor that there were no attempts on Germany’s part to violate the terms of the treaty. The German General Staff was dissolved and compulsory conscription was abolished. Emperor Wilhelm II was considered an international criminal and should have been put on trial.

The German Empire was obliged to pay huge sums of reparations to the Entente countries. Only in the next three years after the conclusion of peace, she had to give away 20 billion marks in gold, securities and goods.

Germany's total losses amounted to an eighth of the territories that belonged to it before the war, and a twelfth of the population.

As a result of the agreement, Germany's ally Austria-Hungary ceased to exist as a separate state: it broke up into independent units (Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia).

Bulgaria, the third ally, withdrew from the war even before the Treaty of Versailles was signed, finding itself economically exhausted. The Bulgarian government was forced to resolve internal conflicts that erupted due to the difficult economic situation.

Results of the war for the victorious countries

The Treaty of Versailles brought considerable gains to the opponents of the Triple Alliance, although population losses during the hostilities were enormous on this side as well.

As new supporters joined the Entente during the war, they also managed to change their borders upward.

According to the terms of the agreement, France, Belgium and Italy were supposed to receive from Germany a considerable amount of fuel and energy reserves: 140, 80 and 77 million tons, respectively.

Terms of the Treaty of Versailles as a prerequisite for the formation of the Third Reich

The German Empire hoped, after the end of hostilities, to finally emerge as a powerful power playing a leading role in Europe politically and economically. Other states also sought to strengthen their position, and in addition they feared the growing influence of Germany and the potential threat from it.

The German government did not immediately agree to recognize the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, and other countries tried to revise it on the most favorable terms for themselves. Therefore, before the signing, many secret meetings were held, during which the parties finally managed to more or less agree.

Historical significance of the treaty

The Versailles peace could not become durable: representatives of the political elite of European states understood that Germany would sooner or later try to take revenge. Therefore, some called this peace simply a truce. For some time, the contradictions between the states were resolved, but it was inevitable. Two decades passed and it broke out. After all, the Treaty of Versailles, without eliminating the previously existing contradictions between states, added new contradictions - between the victors and the vanquished.

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Books

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Versailles is not peace, it's a truce for twenty years

Ferdinand Foch

The Treaty of Versailles of 1919 was signed on June 28. This document officially ended the First World War, which for 4 long years was the worst nightmare for all the inhabitants of Europe. This agreement received its name from the place where it was signed: in France at the Palace of Versailles. The signing of the Versailles Peace Treaty between the Entente countries and Germany, which officially admitted its defeat in the war. The terms of the agreement were so humiliating and cruel towards the losing side that they simply had no analogues in history, and all political figures of that era spoke more about a truce than about peace.

In this material we will consider the main conditions of the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919, as well as the events that preceded the signing of this document. You will see from specific historical facts how stringent the requirements for Germany turned out to be. In fact, this document shaped relations in Europe for two decades, and also created the preconditions for the formation of the Third Reich.

Treaty of Versailles 1919 - terms of peace

The text of the Treaty of Versailles is quite lengthy and covers a huge number of aspects. This is also surprising from the point of view that never before have clauses that have nothing to do with it been spelled out in such detail in a peace agreement. We will present only the most significant conditions of Versailles, which made this treaty so enslaving. We present the Versailles Peace Treaty with Germany, the text of which is presented below.

1. Germany admitted its responsibility for all the damage caused to all countries participating in the First World War. The losing party will have to compensate for this damage.
2. Wilhelm 2, the emperor of the country, was recognized as an international war criminal and was required to be brought before a tribunal (Article 227)
3. Clear boundaries were established between European countries.
4. The German state was prohibited from having a regular army (Article 173)
5. All fortresses and fortified areas west of the Rhine must be completely destroyed (Article 180)
6. Germany was obliged to pay reparations to the winning countries, but specific amounts are not specified in the documents, and there are rather vague formulations that allow these reparation amounts to be assigned at the discretion of the Entente countries (Article 235)
7. The territories west of the Rhine will be occupied by Allied forces to enforce the terms of the treaty (Article 428).

This is not a complete list of the main provisions that the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919 contains, but it is quite enough to evaluate how this document was signed and how it could be implemented.

Prerequisites for signing the agreement

On October 3, 1918, Max Badensky became Chancellor of the Empire. This historical character had a tremendous influence on the outcome of the First World War. By the end of October, all participants in the war were looking for ways to exit it. No one could continue the protracted war.

On November 1, 1918, an event occurred that is not described in Russian history. Max Badensky caught a cold, took sleeping pills and fell asleep. His sleep lasted 36 hours. When the Chancellor woke up on November 3, all the allies withdrew from the war, and Germany itself was engulfed in revolution. Is it possible to believe that the chancellor simply slept through such events and no one woke him up? When he woke up, the country was practically destroyed. Meanwhile, Lloyd George, the former Prime Minister of Great Britain, describes this event in some detail in his biography.

On November 3, 1918, Max Badensky woke up and first of all issued a decree prohibiting the use of weapons against revolutionaries. Germany was on the verge of collapse. Then the chancellor turned to the German Kaiser Wilhelm with a request to abdicate the throne. On November 9, he announced the Kaiser's abdication. But there was no renunciation! William abdicated the throne only after 3 weeks! After the German Chancellor virtually single-handedly lost the war, and also lied about Wilhelm's abdication of power, he himself resigned, leaving behind his successor Ebert, an ardent Social Democrat.

After Ebert was declared Chancellor of Germany, the miracles continued. Just one hour after his appointment, he declared Germany a Republic, although he had no such powers. In fact, immediately after this, negotiations began on a truce between Germany and the Entente countries.

The Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919 also clearly shows us how Badensky and Ebert betrayed their homeland. Armistice negotiations began on November 7. The agreement was signed on November 11. To ratify this agreement, on the German side, it had to be signed by the ruler, the Kaiser, who would never agree to the conditions that the signed agreement carried. Now do you understand why Max of Baden lied on November 9 about Kaiser Wilhelm abdicating power?

Results of the Treaty of Versailles

Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was obliged to transfer to the Entente countries: the entire fleet, all airships, as well as almost all steam locomotives, wagons and trucks. In addition, Germany was prohibited from having a regular army or producing weapons and military equipment. It was forbidden to have a fleet and aviation. In fact, Ebert did not sign a truce, but an unconditional surrender. Moreover, Germany had no reason for this. The Allies did not bomb German cities and not a single enemy soldier was on German territory. The Kaiser's army successfully conducted military operations. Ebert understood perfectly well that the German people would not approve of such a peace treaty and would want to continue the war. Therefore, another trick was invented. The agreement was called an armistice (this a priori told the Germans that the war was simply ending without any concessions), but it was signed only after Ebert and his government had laid down their arms. Even before the signing of the “truce,” Germany transferred the fleet, aviation and all weapons to the Entente countries. After this, resistance by the German people to the Versailles Peace Treaty was impossible. In addition to the loss of the army and navy, Germany was forced to cede a significant part of its territory.

The Treaty of Versailles in 1919 was humiliating for Germany. Most politicians later said that this was not peace, but simply a truce before a new war. And so it happened.

Clemenceau, Woodrow Wilson and David Lloyd George

World War I

Began in August 1914. Coalitions of states fought: the British Empire, France, the Russian Empire (until 1918). The USA (since 1917), its allies and dominions and Germany, the Habsburg Empire, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire. The fighting took place mainly in Europe, partly in the Middle East, and after Japan entered the war on the side of Britain - in Oceania. During the four years of the war, about 70 million people took part in it, approximately 10 million died, more than 50 million were wounded and maimed. Having exhausted all resources to continue the struggle, with the people's acute dissatisfaction with the disasters that befell them as a result of military action, Germany admitted defeat. On November 11, 1918, a truce was signed in the Compiegne Forest near Paris, after which fighting never resumed. The allies of the German Empire capitulated even earlier: Austria-Hungary - November 3, Bulgaria - September 29, Turkey - October 30. The preparation of the text and terms of the peace treaty began with the Compiegne Truce.

The terms of the Treaty of Versailles were worked out at the Paris Peace Conference

Paris Peace Conference

Germany, as the loser of the war and, in the opinion of France and Great Britain, its main culprit, was not invited to participate in the negotiations, nor was Soviet Russia, which had concluded a deal with Germany. Only the winners had a voice in developing the terms of the Versailles Peace. They were divided into four categories.
— The first included the USA, Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan, whose representatives had the right to participate in all meetings and commissions.
— In the second - Belgium, Romania, Serbia, Portugal, China, Nicaragua, Liberia, Haiti. They were invited to participate only in those meetings that directly affected them.
— The third category included countries that were in a state of severance of diplomatic relations with the bloc of central powers: Bolivia, Peru, Uruguay and Ecuador. Delegates from these countries could also take part in the meetings if issues directly affecting them were discussed.
— The fourth group consisted of neutral states or countries that were in the process of formation. Their delegates could speak only after being invited to do so by one of the five major powers, and only on issues specifically affecting those countries.

In preparing the draft peace treaty, the conference participants sought maximum benefit for their countries at the expense of the losers. For example, the division of the colonies of Germany:
“Everyone agreed that the colonies should not be returned to Germany... But what to do with them? This issue has caused controversy. Each of the major countries immediately presented their long-thought-out claims. France demanded the division of Togo and Cameroon. Japan hoped to secure the Shandong Peninsula and the German islands in the Pacific Ocean. Italy also started talking about its colonial interests” (“History of Diplomacy” volume 3)

Smoothing out contradictions, searching for compromises, and establishing, on the initiative of the United States, the League of Nations - an international organization designed to influence world politics so that there would be no more wars between states - took six months

The main participants in the development of the terms of the Versailles Peace

• USA: President Wilson, Secretary of State Lansing
• France: Prime Minister Clemenceau, Foreign Minister Pichon
• England: Prime Minister Lloyd George, Foreign Secretary Balfour
• Italy: Prime Minister Orlando, Foreign Minister Sonnino
• Japan: Baron Makino, Viscount Shinda

Progress of the Paris Peace Conference. Briefly

• January 12 - the first business meeting of prime ministers, foreign ministers and plenipotentiary delegates of the five major powers, at which the language of negotiations was discussed. They recognized English and French
• January 18 - official opening of the conference in the hall of mirrors at Versailles
• January 25 - at a plenary meeting, the conference adopted Wilson's proposal that the League of Nations should be an integral part of the entire peace treaty
• January 30 - Disagreements between the parties regarding the coverage of the negotiations in the press emerged: “It seemed,” House wrote in his diary on January 30, 1919, “that everything had gone to pieces ... The President was angry, Lloyd George was angry, and Clemenceau was angry. For the first time, the President lost his composure during negotiations with them...” (Diary of a US negotiator, Colonel House)
• February 3-13 - ten meetings of the Commission to develop the Charter of the League of Nations
• February 14 - a new truce was concluded with Germany to replace Compiègne: for a short period and with a 3-day warning in case of a break
• February 14 - Wilson, in a solemn atmosphere, reported to the peace conference the statute of the League of Nations: “The veil of mistrust and intrigue has fallen, people look each other in the face and say: we are brothers, and we have a common goal ... From our treaty of brotherhood and friendship,” concluded President's speech
• March 17 - note to Clemenceau Wilson and Lloyd George with a proposal to separate the left bank of the Rhine from Germany and establish the occupation of the left bank provinces by inter-allied armed forces for 30 years, demilitarize the left bank and the fifty-kilometer zone on the right bank of the Rhine

(at the same time) Clemenceau demanded the transfer of the Saar Basin to France. If this does not happen, he argued, Germany, owning coal, will actually control the entire French metallurgy. In response to Clemenceau's new demand, Wilson stated that he had never heard of Saarland until now. In his temper, Clemenceau called Wilson a Germanophile. He sharply declared that not a single French prime minister would sign such an agreement that did not condition the return of the Saar to France.
“This means that if France does not get what it wants,” the president noted in an icy tone, “she will refuse to act together with us.” In that case, would you like me to return home?
“I don’t want you to return home,” replied Clemenceau, “I intend to do it myself.” With these words, Clemenceau quickly left the president’s office.”

• March 20 - meeting of the prime ministers and foreign ministers of France, England, the USA and Italy on the division of spheres of influence in Asian Turkey. Wilson summed up the meeting: “Brilliant - we agreed on all issues.”
• March 23 - Disputes between England and France over Syria leaked to the press. Lloyd George demanded an end to newspaper blackmail. “If this continues, I will leave. I can’t work under these conditions,” he threatened. At Lloyd George's insistence, all further negotiations were conducted in the Council of Four. From that moment on, the Council of Ten (leaders and foreign ministers of the USA, France, England, Italy and Japan) gave way to the so-called “Big Four”, consisting of Lloyd George, Wilson, Clemenceau, Orlando
• March 25 - Lloyd George's memorandum, the so-called "Document from Fontainebleau", outraged Clemenceau. In it, Lloyd George spoke out against the dismemberment of Germany, against the transfer of 2,100 thousand Germans to Polish rule, proposed leaving the Rhineland for Germany, but demilitarizing it, returning Alsace-Lorraine to France, giving it the right to exploit the coal mines of the Saar Basin for ten years, giving it to Belgium Malmedy and Moreno, Denmark - certain parts of Schleswig territory, force Germany to give up all rights to colonies

“You can deprive Germany of its colonies, raise its army to the size of a police force and its fleet to the level of the fleet of a power of the fifth rank. Ultimately it makes no difference: if she considers the 1919 peace treaty unjust, "

• April 14 - Clemenceau informed Wilson of his agreement to include the Monroe Doctrine* in the Charter of the League of Nations. In response, Wilson revised his categorical “no” on the Saarland and Rhineland issues
• April 22 - Lloyd George announced that he aligned himself with the President's position on the Rhine and Saar issues
• April 24 - in protest against the reluctance of the Council of Four to annex the city of Fiume (today the Croatian port of Rijeka) to Italy, Italian Prime Minister Orlando left the conference
• April 24 - Japan demanded that the Shandong Peninsula (in eastern China) belonging to China be transferred to it.
• April 25 - German delegation invited to Versailles
• April 30 - The German delegation arrived in Versailles
• May 7 - Germany is provided with a draft peace treaty. Clemenceau: “The hour of reckoning has come. You asked us for peace. We agree to provide it to you. We give you the book of peace"
• May 12 - at a rally of thousands in Berlin, President Ebert and Minister Scheidemann said: “Let their hands wither before (German representatives in Vnrsala) sign such a peace treaty.”
• May 29 - German Foreign Minister von Brockdorff-Rantzau handed Clemenceau a reply note to Germany. Germany protested against all points of the peace terms and put forward its own counterproposals. They were all rejected
• June 16 - Brockdorff was given a new copy of the peace treaty with minimal changes
• June 21 - The German government announced that it was ready to sign a peace treaty, without, however, recognizing that the German people were responsible for the war
• June 22 - Clemenceau replied that the allied countries would not agree to any changes in the treaty or to any reservations and demanded either to sign peace or refuse to sign
• June 23 - The German National Assembly decided to sign peace without any reservations
• June 28 - the new German Foreign Minister Hermann Müller and Justice Minister Bell signed the Treaty of Versailles

Terms of the Treaty of Versailles

— Germany pledged to return Alsace-Lorraine to France within the 1870 borders with all bridges across the Rhine.
— The coal mines of the Saar Basin became the property of France, and management of the region was transferred to the League of Nations for 15 years, after which a plebiscite was supposed to finally resolve the issue of ownership of the Saar
— The left bank of the Rhine was occupied by the Entente for 15 years
—
— The districts of Eupen and Malmedy went to Belgium
— Areas of Schleswig-Holstein ceded to Denmark
— Germany recognized the independence of Czechoslovakia and Poland
— Germany refused in favor of Czechoslovakia from the Gulcin region in the south of Upper Silesia
— Germany abandoned in favor of Poland some areas of Pomerania, Poznan, most of West Prussia and part of East Prussia
— Danzig (now Gdansk) and the region passed to the League of Nations, which pledged to make it a free city. . Poland received the right to control the railway and river routes of the Danzig corridor. German territory was divided by the "Polish Corridor".
— All German colonies were torn away from Germany
— Universal conscription in Germany was abolished
— The army, consisting of volunteers, should not have exceeded 100 thousand people
— The number of officers should not exceed 4 thousand people
— The General Staff was disbanded
— All German fortifications were destroyed, with the exception of the southern and eastern ones
— The German army was prohibited from having anti-tank and anti-aircraft artillery, tanks and armored cars
— The composition of the fleet was sharply reduced
— Neither the army nor the navy were to have any aircraft or even "controllable balloons"
— Until May 1, 1921, Germany pledged to pay the allies 20 billion marks in gold, goods, ships and securities
— In exchange for the sunken ships, Germany had to provide all of its merchant ships with a displacement of over 1,600 tons, half of the ships with a displacement of over 1,000 tons, one quarter of the fishing vessels and one fifth of its entire river fleet and within five years build merchant ships of a total displacement for the Allies 200 thousand tons per year.
— Over the course of 10 years, Germany pledged to supply up to 140 million tons of coal to France, 80 million to Belgium, and 77 million to Italy.
— Germany was to transfer to the Allied powers half of the total stock of dyes and chemical products and one-fourth of future production until 1925
— Article 116 of the peace treaty recognized Russia’s right to receive part of the reparations from Germany

Results of the Treaty of Versailles

— One-eighth of the territory and one-twelfth of the population ceded to Germany
— Austria pledged to transfer to Italy part of the provinces of Carinthia and Carinthia, Kustenland and South Tyrol. It received the right to maintain an army of only 30 thousand soldiers, but Austria transferred the military and merchant fleet to the winners.
— Yugoslavia received most of Carniola, Dalmatia, southern Styria and southeastern Carinthia, Croatia and Slovenia, part of Bulgaria
— Czechoslovakia included Bohemia, Moravia, two communities of lower Austria and part of Silesia, which belonged to Hungary, Slovakia and Carpathian Rus
— The Bulgarian region of Dobrudja was transferred to Romania.
— Thrace went to Greece, which cut off Bulgaria from the Aegean Sea
— Bulgaria pledged to hand over the entire fleet to the winners and pay an indemnity of 2.5 billion gold francs
— The armed forces of Bulgaria were determined to be 20 thousand people
— Romania received Bukovina, Transylvania and Banat
— About 70% of the territory and almost half of the population departed from Hungary, it was left without access to the sea
— The contingent of the Hungarian army should not exceed 30 thousand people
— There was a huge population shift: Romania evicted more than 300 thousand people from Bessarabia. Almost 500 thousand people left Macedonia and Dobroge. The Germans were leaving Upper Silesia. Hundreds of thousands of Hungarians were resettled from territories transferred to Romania, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia. Seven and a half million Ukrainians were divided between Poland, Romania and Czechoslovakia

Treaty of Versailles 1919

The treaty that officially ended World War I. Signed on June 28, 1919 at Versailles (France) by the United States of America, Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan, as well as Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Hejaz, Honduras, Liberia, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru , Poland, Portugal, Romania, the Serbo-Croatian-Slovenian state, Siam, Czechoslovakia and Uruguay, on the one hand, and capitulated Germany, on the other. The terms of the treaty were worked out after lengthy secret meetings at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919–1920. The treaty came into force on January 10, 1920, after being ratified by Germany and the four main Allied powers - Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan. The US Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles due to the US reluctance to commit itself to participation in the League of Nations. Instead, the United States concluded a special treaty with Germany in August 1921, almost identical to Versailles, but did not contain articles on the League of Nations. According to the Treaty of Versailles, Germany returned Alsace-Lorraine to France (within the borders of 1870); Belgium - the districts of Malmedy and Eupen, as well as the so-called. neutral and Prussian parts of Morena; Poland Poznan, parts of Pomerania and other Western territories. Prussia; the city of Danzig and its district was declared a “free city”; the city of Memel (Klaipeda) was transferred to the jurisdiction of the victorious powers (in February 1923 it was annexed to Lithuania). As a result of the plebiscite, part of Schleswig in 1920 passed to Denmark, part of Upper. Silesia in 1921 - a small section of Silesian territory was transferred to Poland and Czechoslovakia. The Saarland came under the control of the League of Nations for 15 years. The coal mines of the Saar were transferred to French ownership. Under the Treaty of Versailles, Germany recognized and pledged to strictly observe the independence of Austria, Poland and Czechoslovakia. The German part of the left bank of the Rhine and a strip of the right bank 50 km wide were subject to demilitarization. Germany lost all its colonies, which were later divided among the main victorious powers.

Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany's armed forces were limited to a 100,000-strong land army; Compulsory military service was abolished, and the bulk of the remaining navy was to be transferred to the winners. Germany pledged to compensate in the form of reparations for losses incurred by the governments and individual citizens of the Entente countries as a result of military actions.

According to Art. 116 Germany recognized "...the independence of all territories that were part of the former Russian Empire on August 1, 1914", as well as the abolition of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty of 1918 and all other treaties concluded by it with the Soviet government.

The amounts and terms of reparation payments were revised several times. The USA provided huge loans to the German monopolies (see Dawes plan; Young plan). In 1931, Germany was granted a moratorium, after which the payment of reparation payments was stopped.

The dissatisfaction of the German population with the terms of the Treaty of Versailles was used by Hitler and the Nazis to create a mass base for their party. In March 1935, Hitler introduced universal conscription, thereby violating the military articles of the treaty. In June 1935, the Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935 was concluded, which was a bilateral violation of the Treaty of Versailles.

Germany's seizure of Austria (1938), Czechoslovakia (1938-39), Klaipeda (1939) and its attack on Poland (September 1, 1939) actually meant the final liquidation of the Versailles Treaty.