Case Study: A Just Peace
Chairman: So… was the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 a just peace?
German: No. It was a punitive peace formed from Clemenceau’s bitterness and his will for revenge. Look at the terms: Germany was the only world power that must disarm – and they left it only with an army of 100,000 and six warships. Look at the territory… no self-determination for Germans! – Germany lost Alsace Lorraine, its best farmland in west Prussia, the Polish corridor which split it in two, the Saar coal mines for 15 years, it’s colonies, half its iron and steel industry, an eighth of its people… And then there were reparations on top of that! – 132 BILLION Gold marks! What did John Maynard Keynes say? – that they were so huge they would ruin the world’s economy.
French: You have only to regard the Roaring Twenties to see that Keynes was completely mistaken. I believed that Great Britain paid more in the reimbursing war loans than Germany paid in the reparations… thus they WEREN’T impossible, were they? And… yes, the German economy collapsed in 1923… but that was not the fault of the reparations – it was the fault of the German government for printing the paper money whilst they were trying not to pay the reparations. No, the Treaty of Versailles was very reasonable. In Alsace Lorraine, France obtained only the land which Germany had taken from her by war in 1871! And after what Germany had done in France, was it reasonable to wish for some guarantees that there would be never another Schlieffen Plan. If you want an example of an UNFAIR peace, go back to Germany and look at the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk you imposed on Russia in 1917!
American: The Treaty of Versailles wasn’t just fair, it was an absolute good. Just think what America gave the world in the Treaty of Versailles.
One: The idea of self-determination – the idea that restored the nations of Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and which ended the old, evil, colonial empires.
Two: The League of Nations, the precursor of the United Nations today. And, most of all, three the principle that there is a morality to foreign policy – that’s what Clause 231 was really about: saying that the Treaty terms were imposed on Germany because Germany has done something wrong. At the time, this was a REVOLUTIONARY change in foreign affairs.
German: I do not know how you can say such a thing! Clause 231 was a last minute attempt to justify reparations; it is laughable to represent it as a great moral breakthrough, not least because it was an absolute lie – Germany WAS NOT the whole cause of the damage! No wonder the German people felt violated. When Germany signed the Armistice in 1918 they thought they were accepting Wilson’s 14 points. But then Wilson FAILED to stop Clemenceau setting draconian terms, he FAILED to stop Lloyd George expanding the British Empire to a fifth of the globe by taking Germany’s colonies… and he even FAILED to get the Senate to approve either the Treaty or the League, by which he condemned them both to failure.
British: To be fair, I think the Treaty failed because of Germany. They refused to pay reparations in 1921, and again in 1923. Hindenburg denounced War Guilt in 1927. And then after 1933 Hitler set about destroying the Treaty altogether. Treaties only fail because people break them – the Treaty of Versailles didn’t break the peace.
German: But was that not the fault of the Treaty? Because it was an imposed peace. The Germans were not even invited to the Conference – they were ordered to sign it. It was an agreement made under duress, and that invalidates it. And that was the fault of the Big Three. They went to Paris originally NOT to make peace, you know – they only went there to decide what they would ask from Germany at the Peace Conference. But when they got there – everybody lobbies them. And they found they cannot even agree with each other… and suddenly the found themselves plotting the peace – it was easier – and they IMPOSED the peace on Germany, and the Germans rejected it.
Chairman: Hmmm. VERY contentious! Who is right?
German: No. It was a punitive peace formed from Clemenceau’s bitterness and his will for revenge. Look at the terms: Germany was the only world power that must disarm – and they left it only with an army of 100,000 and six warships. Look at the territory… no self-determination for Germans! – Germany lost Alsace Lorraine, its best farmland in west Prussia, the Polish corridor which split it in two, the Saar coal mines for 15 years, it’s colonies, half its iron and steel industry, an eighth of its people… And then there were reparations on top of that! – 132 BILLION Gold marks! What did John Maynard Keynes say? – that they were so huge they would ruin the world’s economy.
French: You have only to regard the Roaring Twenties to see that Keynes was completely mistaken. I believed that Great Britain paid more in the reimbursing war loans than Germany paid in the reparations… thus they WEREN’T impossible, were they? And… yes, the German economy collapsed in 1923… but that was not the fault of the reparations – it was the fault of the German government for printing the paper money whilst they were trying not to pay the reparations. No, the Treaty of Versailles was very reasonable. In Alsace Lorraine, France obtained only the land which Germany had taken from her by war in 1871! And after what Germany had done in France, was it reasonable to wish for some guarantees that there would be never another Schlieffen Plan. If you want an example of an UNFAIR peace, go back to Germany and look at the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk you imposed on Russia in 1917!
American: The Treaty of Versailles wasn’t just fair, it was an absolute good. Just think what America gave the world in the Treaty of Versailles.
One: The idea of self-determination – the idea that restored the nations of Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and which ended the old, evil, colonial empires.
Two: The League of Nations, the precursor of the United Nations today. And, most of all, three the principle that there is a morality to foreign policy – that’s what Clause 231 was really about: saying that the Treaty terms were imposed on Germany because Germany has done something wrong. At the time, this was a REVOLUTIONARY change in foreign affairs.
German: I do not know how you can say such a thing! Clause 231 was a last minute attempt to justify reparations; it is laughable to represent it as a great moral breakthrough, not least because it was an absolute lie – Germany WAS NOT the whole cause of the damage! No wonder the German people felt violated. When Germany signed the Armistice in 1918 they thought they were accepting Wilson’s 14 points. But then Wilson FAILED to stop Clemenceau setting draconian terms, he FAILED to stop Lloyd George expanding the British Empire to a fifth of the globe by taking Germany’s colonies… and he even FAILED to get the Senate to approve either the Treaty or the League, by which he condemned them both to failure.
British: To be fair, I think the Treaty failed because of Germany. They refused to pay reparations in 1921, and again in 1923. Hindenburg denounced War Guilt in 1927. And then after 1933 Hitler set about destroying the Treaty altogether. Treaties only fail because people break them – the Treaty of Versailles didn’t break the peace.
German: But was that not the fault of the Treaty? Because it was an imposed peace. The Germans were not even invited to the Conference – they were ordered to sign it. It was an agreement made under duress, and that invalidates it. And that was the fault of the Big Three. They went to Paris originally NOT to make peace, you know – they only went there to decide what they would ask from Germany at the Peace Conference. But when they got there – everybody lobbies them. And they found they cannot even agree with each other… and suddenly the found themselves plotting the peace – it was easier – and they IMPOSED the peace on Germany, and the Germans rejected it.
Chairman: Hmmm. VERY contentious! Who is right?
Guiding Question:
Analyze the degree of success of the Treaty of Versailles in creating peace and stability in Europe. |
Topics for Discussion:
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Reading:
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For this case study you are to analyze Chapter 27 The Peace (Pgs. 842 - 850) and review the sources provided below. You are expected to be able to answer the guiding question in full depth with specific historical evidence and supporting details.
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Sources:
Source 1 : President Wilson's Announcement to the Armistice to Congress, 11 November 1918
Source Records of the Great War, Vol. VI, ed. Charles F. Horne, National Alumni 1923 |
And in the meantime, if it be possible, we must establish a peace that will justly define their place among the nations, remove all fear of their neighbors and of their former masters, and enable them to live in security and contentment when they have set their own affairs in order.
I, for one, do not doubt their purpose or their capacity. There are some happy signs that they know and will choose the way of self-control and peaceful accommodation. If they do, we shall put our aid at their disposal in every way that we can. If they do not, we must await with patience and sympathy the awakening and recovery that will assuredly come at last. |
Source 2: Sisley Huddleston's Account of the Opening of the Paris Peace Conference, 18 January 1919
Source Records of the Great War, Vol. VII, ed. Charles F. Horne, National Alumni 1923 |
The Peace Conference formally opened on Saturday, January 18th, in the Salle de l'Horloge at the French Foreign Ministry. But for some weeks before there had been a mustering of statesmen from the four corners of the world in Paris, and the French capital, which with its comings and goings of statesmen and generals had for so long been the Capital of the War, was prepared to become the Peace Headquarters.
I think that the strongest criticism that can be made of the Allies is that they permitted two months to slip away before they even proceeded to consider the peace which the armistice promised. There were two things to do, each of which depended on the other. One was to make a temporary treaty which would give us a working relationship with Germany. The other was, not only to make peace in the diplomatic sense, but to pacify Europe. We increased our difficulties with Germany by the long delay. We could in the first flush of victory have imposed our maximum terms almost without protest on the crushed people; and it would have had an excellent effect to modify them later on. But we muddled, because Clemenceau wanted one sort of peace, Lloyd George another, and Wilson a third. We got in each other's way. |
Source 3: Georges Clemenceau's Opening Address as Conference President.
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…It is a very vast field. But we beg of you to begin by examining the question as to the responsibility of the authors of the war. I do not need to set forth our reasons for this. If we wish to establish justice in the world we can do so now, for we have won victory and can impose the penalties demanded by justice.
We shall insist on the imposition of penalties on the authors of the abominable crimes committed during the war. Has any one any question to ask in regard to this? If not, I would again remind you that every delegation should devote itself to the study of this first question, which has been made the subject of reports by eminent jurists, and of a report which will be sent to you entitled, "An Inquiry into the Criminal Responsibility of the Emperor William II." |
Source 4: Excerpt from Grandeur and Mistery of Victory, Georges Clemenceau, 1930
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For the catastrophe of 1914 the Germans are responsible. Only a professional liar would deny this…
What after all is this war, prepared, undertaken, and waged by the German people, who flung aside every scruple of conscience to let it loose, hoping for a peace of enslavement under the yoke of a militarism destructive of all human dignity? It is simply the continuance, the recrudescence, of those never-ending acts of violence by which the first savage tribes carried out their depredations with all the resources of barbarism. The means improve with the ages. The ends remain the same… Germany, in this matter, was unfortunate enough to allow herself (in spite of her skill at dissimulation) to be betrayed into an excess of candor by here characteristic tendency to go to extremes. Deutschland uber alles. Germany above everything! That, and nothing less, is what she asks, and when once her demand is satisfied she will let you enjoy a peace under the yoke. Not only does she make no secret of her aim, but the intolerable arrogance of the German aristocracy, the servile good nature of the intellectual and the scholar, the gross vanity of the most competent leaders in industry, and the wide-spread influence of a violent popular poetry conspire to shatter throughout the world all the time honored traditions of individual, as well as international, dignity… On November 11, 1918, the fighting ceased. It is not I who will dispute the German soldier’s qualities of endurance. But he had been promised a fresh and frolicsome war, and for four years he had been pinned down between the anvil and the hammer… Our defeat would have resulted in a relapse of human civilization into violence and bloodshed….. May I further recall, since we have to emphasize the point, that on September 17, 1914, Erzberger, the well-known German statesman, an eminent member of the Catholic Party, wrote to the Minister of War, General von Falkenhayn, “We must not worry about committing an offence against the rights of nations nor about violating the laws of humanity. Such feelings today are of secondary importance.” A month later, on October 21, 1914, he wrote in Der Tag, “If a way was found of entirely wiping out the whole of London it would be more humane to employ it than to allow the blood of a single German soldier to be shed on the battlefield!”… |
Source 5: Leader of the German Peace Delegation Count von Brockdorff-Rantzau's Letter to Paris Peace Conference President Georges Clemenceau on the Subject of Peace Terms, May 1919
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Although the exaction of the cost of the war has been expressly renounced, yet Germany, thus cut in pieces and weakened, must declare herself ready in principle to bear all the war expenses of her enemies, which would exceed many times over the total amount of German State and private assets.
Meanwhile her enemies demand, in excess of the agreed conditions, reparation for damage suffered by their civil population, and in this connection Germany must also go bail for her allies. The sum to be paid is to be fixed by our enemies unilaterally, and to admit of subsequent modification and increase. No limit is fixed, save the capacity of the German people for payment, determined not by their standard of life, but solely by their capacity to meet the demands of their enemies by their labour. The German people would thus be condemned to perpetual slave labour. In spite of the exorbitant demands, the reconstruction of our economic life is at the same time rendered impossible. We must surrender our merchant fleet. We are to renounce all foreign securities. We are to hand over to our enemies our property in all German enterprises abroad, even in the countries of our allies. Even after the conclusion of peace the enemy States are to have the right of confiscating all German property. No German trader in their countries will be protected from these war measures. We must completely renounce our colonies, and not even German missionaries shall have the right to follow their calling therein. We most thus renounce the realization of all our aims in the spheres of politics, economics, and ideas. Thus must a whole people sign the decree for its proscription, nay, its own death sentence. Germany knows that she must make sacrifices in order to attain peace. Germany knows that she has, by agreement, undertaken to make these sacrifices, and will go in this matter to the utmost limits of her capacity. |
Source 6: Dutch Algemeen Handelsblad Editorial on the Treaty of Versailles, June 1919
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The peace conditions imposed upon Germany are so hard, so humiliating, that even those who have the smallest expectation of a "peace of justice" are bound to be deeply disappointed.
Has Germany actually deserved such a "peace"? Everybody knows how we condemned the crimes committed against humanity by Germany. Everybody knows what we thought of the invasion of Belgium, the submarine war, the Zeppelin raids. Our opinion on the lust of power and conquest of Germany is well known. But a condemnation of wartime actions must not amount to a lasting condemnation of a people. In spite of all they have done, the German people is a great and noble nation. The question is not whether the Germans have been led by an intellectual group to their destruction, or whether they are accomplices in the misdeeds of their leaders - the question is, whether it is to the interest of mankind, whether there is any sense in punishing a people in such a way as the Entente governments wish to chastise Germany. The Entente evidently desires the complete annihilation of Germany. Not only will the whole commercial fleet be confiscated, but the shipbuilding yards will be obliged to work for the foreigner for some time to come. Whole tracts of Germany will be entirely deprived of their liberty; they will be under a committee of foreign domination, without adequate representation. The financial burden is so heavy that it is no exaggeration to say that Germany is reduced to economic bondage. The Germans will have to work hard and incessantly for foreign masters, without any chance of personal gain, or any prospect of regaining liberty or economic independence. This "peace" offered to Germany may differ in form from the one imposed upon conquered nations by the old Romans, but certainly not in essence. This peace is a mockery of President Wilson's principles. Trusting to these, Germany accepted peace. That confidence has been betrayed in such a manner that we regard the present happenings as a deep humiliation, not only to all governments and nations concerned in this peace offer, but to all humanity. These conditions will never give peace. All Germans must feel that they wish to shake off the heavy yoke imposed by the cajoling Entente, and we fear very much that that opportunity will soon present itself. For has not the Entente recognized in the proposed so-called "League of Nations" the evident right to conquer and possess countries for economic and imperialistic purposes? Fettered and enslaved, Germany will always remain a menace to Europe. The voice and opinion of neutrals have carried very little weight in this war. But, however small their influence and however dangerous the rancorous caprice of the Entente powers may be to neutrals, it is our conviction and our duty to protest as forcibly as possible against these peace conditions. We understand the bitter feelings of the Entente countries. But that does not make these peace conditions less wrong, less dangerous to world civilization, or any less an outrage against Germany and against mankind. |
Source 9: John Maynard Keynes predicts economic chaos
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At the Palace of Versailles outside Paris, Germany signs the Treaty of Versailles with the Allies, officially ending World War I. The English economist John Maynard Keynes, who had attended the peace conference but then left in protest of the treaty, was one of the most outspoken critics of the punitive agreement. In his The Economic Consequences of the Peace, published in December 1919, Keynes predicted that the stiff war reparations and other harsh terms imposed on Germany by the treaty would lead to the financial collapse of the country, which in turn would have serious economic and political repercussions on Europe and the world.
The treaty that began to emerge was a thinly veiled Carthaginian Peace, an agreement that accomplished Clemenceau’s hope to crush France’s old rival. According to its terms, Germany was to relinquish 10 percent of its territory. It was to be disarmed, and its overseas empire taken over by the Allies. Most detrimental to Germany’s immediate future, however, was the confiscation of its foreign financial holdings and its merchant carrier fleet. The German economy, already devastated by the war, was thus further crippled, and the stiff war reparations demanded ensured that it would not soon return to its feet. A final reparations figure was not agreed upon in the treaty, but estimates placed the amount in excess of $30 billion, far beyond Germany’s capacity to pay. Germany would be subject to invasion if it fell behind on payments. Keynes, horrified by the terms of the emerging treaty, presented a plan to the Allied leaders in which the German government be given a substantial loan, thus allowing it to buy food and materials while beginning reparations payments immediately. Lloyd George approved the “Keynes Plan,” but President Wilson turned it down because he feared it would not receive congressional approval. In a private letter to a friend, Keynes called the idealistic American president “the greatest fraud on earth.” On June 5, 1919, Keynes wrote a note to Lloyd George informing the prime minister that he was resigning his post in protest of the impending “devastation of Europe.” |