Welcome back everyone to our studies in democracy and Nazism. We're continuing looking at the establishment and early v uh early years of VHimar uh between 1918 and 1924. And in this video we're going to talk about the treaty of Versailles. So the uh the expectation from the specification is to talk about the peace settlements the Versailles treaty uh the expectations and reality terms and problems and attitudes within Germany and abroad. essentially the responses and the general views uh associated with this treaty of Versailles. So the treaty of Versailles which was signed fully in on the 28th of June 1918 uh marked the formal end of the first world war. It was one of the most consequential peace treaties in modern history often due to its profound impact especially on Germany. So let's think about this peace treaty. Let's think about the key players involved and let's think about some of the expectations and reality associated with its terms and the extent to which um the attitudes in Germany and abroad uh were were were apt or maybe were exaggerated should we say. So let's just think about this sort of expectations and reality. The expectations uh for the peace treaty was of course uh the following issues. there was a lasting peace. The Allied powers, particularly France, the United Kingdom and Italy expected that the Treaty of Versailles would establish a just and lasting peace. After four years of war, World War they wanted to ensure that Germany would not be able to rise again to be a military threat. It also was expected by the leaders of the allied powers, particularly the French prime minister Georges Clemenso, that Germany would be punished for uh the war itself, ensuring that could never again threaten France or other European nations. Clemenso demanded substantial reparations and substantial losses of territory from Germany. By contrast, then the United States delegation, the US President Woodro Wilson came to the negotiations with a certain sense of idealistic vision. He introduced his 14 points uh for for essentially dealing with a post-war world. The 14 points included the proposals for open diplomacy, the idea of self-determination of peoples and free trade and disarmament and the establishment of a league of nations to promote collective security. Wilson hoped that the treaty would create a more just and cooperative international order and also seem seemingly um took aim at some of the allied forces in terms of thinking about the self-determination of peoples when examining the sort of imperial legacies of France and Great Britain and and the empires that they still maintain and colonizing of peoples. Now, Germany, despite being the defeated power, hoped for a more lenient peace settlement. Germans believed that the allies would recognize that the suffering they had endured during the war and that their losses particularly in terms of human casualties ought to be taken into account. Additionally, the 14 points that was issued by Woodro Wilson was uh was public and was something that was well known and so many expected the peace agreement to be based on the idealism of Woodro Wilson as his uh as his um points were widely circulated and actually sympathized with in Germany. The reality then the reality then was far more destructive especially for Germany. So we see a lot of harsh terms. Harsh terms included things like territorial losses. It lo it was things such as the loss of alsastaster to France. The Sar basin was to be placed under the control of this newly founded League of Nations with the coal mines being given to France. The Rhineland was to be demilitarized, ensuring that German forces could not be stationed stationed there. Poland was to be reestablished as a state, taking territory away from Germany, specifically West Prussia and Upper Salatia. And we also see that Germany was to lose all of its overseas colonies in Asia and the Pacific. A huge amount of territory then taken away or demilitarized. In terms of military restrictions, the army was limited to only a 100,000 soldiers. Conscription would be banned. Germany was not allowed to have an air force, tanks, or submarines. And Germany was restricted to having a navy which only had six battleships. The two final points though were the most significant. So, article 231 of the treaty of Versailles was known as the war guilt clause. Now essentially it places full responsibility for the war on Germany and its allies. This is a deeply humiliating uh clause for Germany and it fueled quite a significant amount of resentment for the allies. Germans felt that it was very unjust especially given the complex causes of the war. And I'm to be honest with you, I'm inclined to agree that placing full responsibility for the war on Germany is something of a harsh expectation um in relation to if you think about historically the causes of the first world war. But by extension of having war guilt and essentially placing responsibility on the war of the war on Germany, it meant that Germany was then responsible for making financial reparations. They would have to pay reparations. Now, even though the exact amount was not to be determined immediately, it was eventually set in 1921 to 132 billion gold marks around 33 billion at the time and something of an incredible price tag uh into even in today's money. That's a huge number. But given inflation uh nearly 100 year over 100 years later, that would be a huge uh financial burden um which would contribute to the post-war economic devastation which we'll get to. So essentially the terms of the Treaty of Versailles were meant to ensure that German disarmament would take place and it would prevent future aggression. Um but in practice the provisions led to significant problems. So firstly we see that the the reparations that would be imposed u in 1921 uh by the reparations committee uh would ultimately cause quite a significant amount of economic impact spec particularly hyperinflation and economic collapse which we'll get to in future lessons. We also see a widespread amount of disillusionment within Germany. Many Germans, particularly the the political right, saw the treaty as a quote stab in the back. And they started to perpetuate this idea of the stab in the back myth, believing that it was um not the war wasn't lost on the battlefield, but instead it was due to being the the elites at home betraying the military and betraying the the true German soul. This then gets wrapped up when we start to think about the the Nazi party, it gets wrapped up into anti-semitism where it is blamed on the Jews and and all these different kinds of issues. The myth of betrayal then is promoted by nationalist and military leaders and continues to plague the VHimar Republic in terms of political instability. The perceived injustice also creates a fertile ground for the rise of radical ideologies. the Nazi party and Adolf Hitler would use anti- Versailles rhetoric to gain their popularity and this ultimately leads to Hitler's first attempt to claim um power uh which will take place with the Munich push in 1923 which we'll get to in future lessons and ultimately despite the vision of Woodro Wilson the League of Nations which was established to promote collective security and to try and prevent future wars was very very ineffective the US didn't join the league due to the Senate's opposition of um the treaty and the countries were therefore reluctant to enforce the decisions. So in terms of attitudes associated with the Treaty of Versailles, let's begin with Germany and think about some of the uh responses to to to the Treaty of Versailles. We see of course the idea of widespread resentment. I've already mentioned previously the the idea of um the idea of stab in the back. This became a huge uh uh uh myth which ultimately led to the vehment rejection of the treaty uh among German society. The treaty was seen as what is known as a dictat dictated peace um which was imposed on Germany without German input. Famously Germany was not invited to the treaty of Versailles. It compounded the struggles within the VHimar Republic as they were the ones that accepted the treaty of Versailles a and so the political chaos uh would lead to the eventual rise of more and more extremist parties. The treaty's harsh terms also affected the collective psyche of the German population. The sense of national humiliation became palpable and many believed it had been unjustly punished for the war that they did not in fact start. this feeling of injustice would play into the role would play a very key role in in in Nazi propaganda that we start to see later on. Now, in terms of attitudes abroad, I I would also like to spend a couple of minutes talking about whether or not these attitudes and whether or not this response was actually um was actually uh welld deserved. I would argue that personally from a historical perspective, blaming only Germany or blaming Germany and her allies for the first world war is probably a bit of an exaggeration. Um but in terms of other treaties of comparable um of comparable um nature during this time you could compare the treaty of Versailles that was imposed on Germany to the treaty of breasttosk in 1917 which was or 1918 should I say which was imposed by Germany on the Russian Empire because the Russians were defeated first. This was the treaty of breasttovsk was far far far worse than the treaty of Versailles on Russia uh than the treaty of Versailles was on Germany if that makes sense. So you should put a little bit of contextual understanding into this idea of this collective psyche of harsh treatment. But it does it is nevertheless the case that broadly speaking both the treaty of Versailles and the treaty of Breltov were very very harsh treaties on the defeated um on the defeated enemies. In terms of attitudes abroad then in France having suffered the most during the war um they were adamant that Germany was to be weakened to prevent future aggression. Now the French public largely supported the terms of the treaty and uh Clemenso the the the French um representing the French interest actually pushed for even more severe sanctions and he saw these measures as necessary to to ensure French security. So France by and large supported the treaty, but people like Clemenso um would actually um have wanted even harsher turns on Germany than they actually got. The British public was more ambivalent about the treaty's harshness. While they wanted to ensure Germany was sufficiently weakened, they also believed that push punishing Germany would uh too severely could destabilize Europe and lead to future problems. A pretty um apt um description of events. The British Prime Minister of the time, the Liberal Party's David Lloyd George, was caught between these competing pressures. Now, over time, Britain would come to see the treaty as too punitive, especially in terms of economic costs and reparations as they became more and more apparent. And then ultimately in the the final point, there was a disillusionment by the final treaty on the part of Woodro Wilson. He had hoped to create a far more peaceful and cooperative world and a world that more importantly reflected his 14 points. But he was weakened by his own um his own Senate, his own Congress in America, which meant that US would never join the League of Nations. He had a very idealistic v vision for the League of Nations. And maybe it was just uh one war too soon for him to um have actually been able to espouse these 14 points in a way that was actually going to be effective.