hello and thank you for checking out this audio revision guide from www ms rural history comm you can visit my website to download free history revision podcasts on this topic and a whole load of others now let's get on with this the Treaty of Versailles in my last podcast I explained the aims of the big three by whom I mean the leaders of Britain France and the USA when they drew up the Treaty of Versailles in this podcast we're going to look at the terms of the Treaty and how different countries reacted to it to remember the terms of the treaty you might find it helpful to use the mnemonic gargle guilt arms reparations German territory and League of Nations that's the L II in league to make the word goggle firstly Germany had to accept guilt or blame for starting the war unsurprisingly this is referred to as the war guilt clause the logic went that if Germany was to be punished it firstly needed to accept that it had caused the war in the first place secondly all of Germany's armed forces were severely limited the army was only allowed a maximum of 100,000 soldiers and conscription was banned which meant that any soldiers who did join the army had to do so voluntarily furthermore Germany wasn't allowed to own any armored vehicles such as tanks it couldn't have any submarines and although it was permitted to have civilian aeroplanes it wasn't allowed ones to be used by the military thirdly Germany had to pay reparations to France Britain and Belgium this was financial compensation to pay for the damage caused during the war the final amount of six thousand six hundred million British pounds wasn't actually set until 1921 it was such an enormous figure at the time that Germany wouldn't have finished paying the bill until 1984 that's 65 years after the war had finished German territory was also affected by the Treaty of Versailles as well as losing all its overseas colonies mostly to Britain and France the border territory of Alsace Lorraine went back to France having been taken from them after the franco-prussian war of 1871 Germany also lost control over the Saar a very valuable coal mining area west pressure and Upper Silesia were taken away and given to Poland to create the Polish corridor while the city of Danzig was put under control of the new League of Nations although in reality was given to Poland to use as a seaport in addition to this any future attempt to unify Germany and Austria is six and a half million German citizens was forbidden finally the big three agreed that as previous methods of keeping peace had failed it was vitally important to establish an organisation whose job it was to sort out international disputes consequently they all agreed to set up the League of Nations however Germany itself wasn't actually invited to join the league until it had proved to the other members that it was a so-called peace-loving country the people of France were delighted with the treaty it hadn't punished Germany quite as much as some had wanted but there was no doubt that the war was over and France had won on the streets of Paris there were patriotic celebrations convinced that the threat from Germany had ended the majority of the British public also supported the treaty with most families having been hit by the cruel realities of war they felt that Germany had got what it deserved and saw Lloyd George as a hero however some British people were worried their main concern was whether the treaty really would bring peace as nobody really knew how Germany would react to it but these people were in the minority most of the British public thought the Germans were complaining for no reason after all when Germany imposed harsh terms on France back in 1871 after the franco-prussian war France had managed to begin rebuilding its economy within less than a decade but what did German people think about the Treaty of Versailles and why well you probably won't be surprised to know that the Germans were not very happy with the terms of the treaty they had no say in writing it they were just told to sign it but if they didn't the war would have restarted and Germany would likely have been completely shattered but as they didn't feel that they had started the war on their own many Germans felt that it was very unfair that they had to accept the war guilt clause furthermore the German government that had to sign the treaty was not the same government that took Germany into the war in the first place the Kaiser had abdicated and fled the country and a new Republic had been set up in 1918 but it was the new government that had to agree to the treaty and so it was arguably punishing the wrong people the treaty had taken away 10% of Germany's land and 12 and a half percent of its population these Germans had now been absorbed into other countries thanks to the redrawing of national borders millions of former Germans were now ruled by foreigners to make matters worse part of Germany the area known as East Prussia was now completely cut off from the rest of Germany by the Polish corridor furthermore the limits on the army were humiliating for such a large country the reduction was intended to stop Germany from having a military strong enough to invade other countries but too many Germans it seemed as if they now wouldn't even be able to defend themselves if someone else attacked them one of the biggest challenges for historians assessing the Treaty of Versailles is the effect of hindsight the knowledge of what happened next we know that Hitler used arguments against the treaty to help him become the leader of Germany which in turn went on to contribute to the outbreak of the Second World War however it's important to try to forget that for a while we should try to assess the treaty only in terms of the time that it was created let's therefore try to remain objective and consider both sides of the argument evidence in favor of the treaty and evidence against the treaty so what examples are there that the treaty was a fair agreement firstly the final terms of the treaty were much less harsh on Germany than public opinion in the winning countries had demanded in many cases in fact the peacemakers held back an example of this was the French public's demand to completely break Germany apart into a series of small weak states the big three simply refused to include such a severe term secondly it could be argued that the treaty was much less harsh than the Germans might have imposed on the other countries if they had won we know that the Germans had been incredibly tough on Russia in the Treaty of brest-litovsk and sources produced at the time showed that German policy had always been to spend huge amounts of money on fighting the war win it and then pay back war debts by imposing massive reparations on the losing nations in that sense the reparations imposed in the Treaty of Versailles could be seen as only what Germany would have done if they had won thirdly it's important to note that the treaty alone did not cause Germany's future problems the new government struggling to run Germany after four years of catastrophic war contributed to its problems as well it's generally accepted by economic historians that Germany could have paid the reparations bill if it had chosen to and as soon as a great leader in this case Gustav Stresemann took charge after the problems of 1923 Germany sorted out its economy very quickly that he was able to fix things can be seen as evidence that the treaty wasn't as bad as Germans in 1919 were making out however these points need to be balanced with a number of negative issues that strongly suggests that the treaty was unfair firstly you could argue that it punished the wrong people the German government that was forced to sign the treaty was not the same government that took Germany into the war while many people argued that the treaty should have tried to build up and support the fragile newly elected government instead it knocked it back before it even had a chance to get started secondly you could argue that the treaty should not have placed guilt for the war on Germany alone it was a shared responsibility and other countries it is argued should have shouldered some of the blame as well thirdly the treaty damaged Germany enough to cause resentment but left it strong enough to seek revenge in the future as with all historical debate it's important to address both sides of the argument there is evidence to suggest that the Viet Minh there is evidence to support the view that the treaty was a wise and fair agreement or at the very least the best that they could do at the time but there is also evidence to suggest that it was as some people called it at the time stupid or alternatively unfair make sure that you present at least two or more pieces of evidence to support each side of the argument because if you're asked to answer a question on this topic you will need to back up your points with solid evidence and examples in order to explain what you think