Editing Treaty of Versailles (section)

==Historical assessments==
[[File:Keynes 1933.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[John Maynard Keynes]], the principal representative of the British Treasury, denounced the Treaty as a "[[Carthaginian peace]]".|alt=A sitted man looks on the side.]]

Historians are split on the impact of the treaty. Some saw it as a good solution in a difficult time, others saw it as a disastrous measure that would anger the Germans to seek revenge. The actual impact of the treaty is also disputed.{{sfn|TNA: The Great War 1914 to 1918|n.d.}}

In his book ''[[The Economic Consequences of the Peace]]'', John Maynard Keynes referred to the Treaty of Versailles as a "[[Carthaginian peace]]", a misguided attempt to destroy Germany on behalf of French [[revanchism]], rather than to follow the fairer principles for a lasting peace set out in Wilson's Fourteen Points, which Germany had accepted at the armistice. He stated: "I believe that the campaign for securing out of Germany the general costs of the war was one of the most serious acts of political unwisdom for which our statesmen have ever been responsible."{{sfn|Keynes|1920}}
Keynes had been the principal representative of the British Treasury at the Paris Peace Conference, and used in his passionate book arguments that he and others (including some US officials) had used at Paris.{{sfn|Markwell|2006}} He believed the sums being asked of Germany in reparations were many times more than it was possible for Germany to pay, and that these would produce drastic instability.{{efn-lr|"The Treaty includes no provisions for the economic rehabilitation of Europe—nothing to make the defeated Central Empires into good neighbours, nothing to stabilize the new States of Europe, nothing to reclaim Russia; nor does it promote in any way a compact of economic solidarity amongst the Allies themselves; no arrangement was reached at Paris for restoring the disordered finances of France and Italy, or to adjust the systems of the Old World and the New. The Council of Four paid no attention to these issues, being preoccupied with others—Clemenceau to crush the economic life of his enemy, Lloyd George to do a deal and bring home something which would pass muster for a week, the President to do nothing that was not just and right. It is an extraordinary fact that the fundamental economic problems of a Europe starving and disintegrating before their eyes, was the one question in which it was impossible to arouse the interest of the Four. Reparation was their main excursion into the economic field, and they settled it as a problem of theology, of polities, of electoral chicane, from every point of view except that of the economic future of the States whose destiny they were handling." {{harvcol|Keynes|1919}}}}

[[File:Commemorative medal issued on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Treaty of Versailles.jpg|thumb|Commemorative medal issued in 1929 in Germany on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Treaty of Versailles. The obverse depicts [[Georges Clemenceau]] presenting a bound treaty, decorated with skull and crossbones to [[Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau]]. Other members of the Conference are standing behind Clemenceau, including Lloyd-George, Wilson and Orlando.]]

French economist [[Étienne Mantoux]] disputed that analysis. During the 1940s, Mantoux wrote a posthumously published book titled ''The Carthaginian Peace, or the Economic Consequences of Mr. Keynes'' in an attempt to rebut Keynes' claims. More recently economists have argued that the restriction of Germany to a small army saved it so much money it could afford the reparations payments.{{sfn|Hantke|Spoerer|2010|pp=849–864}}

It has been argued—for instance by historian [[Gerhard Weinberg]] in his book ''A World at Arms''{{sfn|Reynolds|1994}}—that the treaty was in fact quite advantageous to Germany. The Bismarckian Reich was maintained as a political unit instead of being broken up, and Germany largely escaped post-war military occupation (in contrast to the situation following World War&nbsp;II). In a 1995 essay, Weinberg noted that with the disappearance of [[Austria-Hungary]] and with Russia withdrawn from Europe, that Germany was now the dominant power in [[Eastern Europe]].{{sfn|Weinberg|2008|p=16}}

The British military historian [[Correlli Barnett]] argued that the Treaty of Versailles was "extremely lenient in comparison with the [[Septemberprogramm|peace terms]] that Germany herself, when she was expecting to win the war, had had in mind to impose on the Allies". Furthermore, he said, it was "hardly a slap on the wrist" when contrasted with the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]] that Germany had imposed on a defeated [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian SFSR]] in March 1918, which had taken away a third of Russia's population (albeit mostly of non-[[Russian people|Russian]] ethnicity), one-half of Russia's industrial undertakings and nine-tenths of Russia's coal mines, coupled with an [[indemnity]] of six billion [[German Papiermark|marks]].{{sfn|Barnett|2002|p=392}} Eventually, even under the "cruel" terms of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany's economy had been restored to its pre-war status.

Barnett also argues that, in strategic terms, Germany was in fact in a superior position following the Treaty than she had been in 1914. Germany's eastern frontiers faced Russia and Austria, who had both in the past balanced German power. Barnett asserts that its post-war eastern borders were safer, because the former [[Austrian Empire]] fractured after the war into smaller, weaker states, Russia was wracked by [[Russian Revolution|revolution]] and [[Russian Civil War|civil war]], and the newly restored Poland was no match for even a defeated Germany. In the West, Germany was balanced only by France and [[Belgium (1918–40)|Belgium]], both of which were smaller in population and less economically vibrant than Germany. Barnett concludes by saying that instead of weakening Germany, the treaty "much enhanced" German power.{{sfn|Barnett|1986|p=316}}
Britain and France should have (according to Barnett) "divided and permanently weakened" Germany by undoing Bismarck's work and partitioning Germany into smaller, weaker states so it could never have disrupted the peace of Europe again.{{sfn|Barnett|1986|p=318}}
By failing to do this and therefore not solving the problem of German power and restoring the equilibrium of Europe, Britain "had failed in her main purpose in taking part in the Great War".{{sfn|Barnett|1986|p=319}}
[[File:Treaty of Versailles Reparations -- Let's see you collect.png|thumb|American political cartoon depicting the contemporary view of German reparations, 1921|upright]]
The British historian of modern Germany [[Richard J. Evans]] wrote that during the war the [[Conservatism in Germany|German right]] was committed to an annexationist program which aimed at Germany annexing most of Europe and Africa. Consequently, any peace treaty that did not leave Germany as the conqueror would be unacceptable to them.{{sfn|Evans|1989|p=107}} Short of allowing Germany to keep all the conquests of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Evans argued that there was nothing that could have been done to persuade the German right to accept Versailles.{{sfn|Evans|1989|p=107}} Evans further noted that the parties of the [[Weimar Coalition]], namely the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany]] (SPD), the [[social liberalism|social liberal]] [[German Democratic Party]] (DDP) and the [[Christian democracy|Christian democratic]] [[Centre Party (Germany)|Centre Party]], were all equally opposed to Versailles, and it is false to say as some historians have that opposition to Versailles also equalled opposition to the [[Weimar Republic]].{{sfn|Evans|1989|p=107}} Finally, Evans argued that it is untrue that Versailles caused the premature end of the Republic, instead contending that it was the [[Great Depression]] of the early 1930s that put an end to German democracy. He also argued that Versailles was not the "main cause" of [[Nazism|National Socialism]] and the German economy was "only marginally influenced by the impact of reparations".{{sfn|Evans|1989|p=107}}

[[Ewa Thompson]] points out that the treaty allowed numerous nations in Central and Eastern Europe to liberate themselves from oppressive German rule, a fact that is often neglected by Western historiography, more interested in understanding the German point of view. In nations that found themselves free as the result of the treaty—such as [[Polish people|Poles]] or [[Czechs]]—it is seen as a symbol of recognition of wrongs committed against small nations by their much larger aggressive neighbours.{{sfn|Thompson|n.d.}}

Resentment caused by the treaty sowed fertile psychological ground for the eventual rise of the [[Nazi Party]],{{sfn|BBC Bitesize}} but the German-born Australian historian Jürgen Tampke argued that it was "a perfidious distortion of history" to argue that the terms prevented the growth of democracy in Germany and aided the growth of the Nazi Party; saying that its terms were not as punitive as often held and that German hyper-inflation in the 1920s was partly a deliberate policy to minimise the cost of reparations. As an example of the arguments against the {{lang|de|Versaillerdiktat}} he quotes Elizabeth Wiskemann who heard two officer's widows in Wiesbaden complaining that "with their stocks of linen depleted they had to have their linen washed once a fortnight (every two weeks) instead of once a month!"{{sfn|Tampke|2017|pp=vii, xii}}

The German historian [[Detlev Peukert]] wrote that Versailles was far from the impossible peace that most Germans claimed it was during the [[interwar period]], and though not without flaws was actually quite reasonable to Germany.{{sfn|Peukert|1992|p=278}} Rather, Peukert argued that it was widely believed in Germany that Versailles was a totally unreasonable treaty, and it was this "perception" rather than the "reality" of the Versailles treaty that mattered.{{sfn|Peukert|1992|p=278}} Peukert noted that because of the "[[Millenarianism|millenarian hopes]]" created in Germany during World War&nbsp;I when for a time it appeared that Germany was on the verge of conquering all of Europe, any peace treaty the Allies of World War&nbsp;I imposed on the defeated ''[[German Reich]]'' were bound to create a nationalist backlash, and there was nothing the Allies could have done to avoid that backlash.{{sfn|Peukert|1992|p=278}} Having noted that much, Peukert commented that the policy of [[rapprochement]] with the Western powers that Gustav Stresemann carried out between 1923 and 1929 were constructive policies that might have allowed Germany to play a more positive role in Europe, and that it was not true that German democracy was doomed to die in 1919 because of Versailles.{{sfn|Peukert|1992|p=278}} Finally, Peukert argued that it was the Great Depression and the turn to a nationalist policy of [[autarky]] within Germany at the same time that finished off the Weimar Republic, not the Treaty of Versailles.{{sfn|Peukert|1992|p=278}}

French historian Raymond Cartier states that millions of ethnic Germans in the [[Sudetenland]] and in [[Posen-West Prussia]] were placed under foreign rule in a hostile environment, where harassment and violation of rights by authorities are documented.{{efn-lr|name=Cartier|Raymond Cartier, ''La Seconde Guerre mondiale'', Paris, Larousse Paris Match, 1965, quoted in {{harvnb|Groppe|2004}}.}}
Cartier asserts that, out of 1,058,000 Germans in Posen-West Prussia in 1921, 758,867 fled their homelands within five years due to Polish harassment.{{efn-lr|name=Cartier}} These sharpening ethnic conflicts would lead to public demands to reattach the annexed territory in 1938 and become a pretext for Hitler's annexations of [[German occupation of Czechoslovakia|Czechoslovakia]] and parts of [[History of Poland (1939–1945)|Poland]].{{efn-lr|name=Cartier}}

According to [[David Stevenson (historian)|David Stevenson]], since the opening of French archives, most commentators have remarked on French restraint and reasonableness at the conference, though Stevenson notes that "[t]he jury is still out", and that "there have been signs that the pendulum of judgement is swinging back the other way."{{sfn|Stevenson|1998|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=7xZFKfQHAtMC&dq=%22in+contrast+with+earlier+indictments+most+commentators+since+the+1970s+have+been+impressed+by+french+moderation+and+defensiveness%22&pg=PA11 11]}}

===Territorial changes===
[[File:Map Europe 1923-en.svg|thumb|Map of territorial changes in Europe after World War&nbsp;I (as of 1923)]]

The Treaty of Versailles resulted in the creation of several thousand miles of new boundaries, with maps playing a central role in the negotiations at Paris.{{sfn|Kent|2019|pp=275–279}}{{sfn|Altic|2016|pp=179–198}} The plebiscites initiated due to the treaty have drawn much comment. Historian Robert Peckham wrote that the issue of Schleswig "was premised on a gross simplification of the region's history. ... Versailles ignored any possibility of there being a third way: the kind of compact represented by the Swiss Federation; a bilingual or even trilingual Schleswig-Holsteinian state" or other options such as "a Schleswigian state in a loose confederation with Denmark or Germany, or an autonomous region under the protection of the League of Nations."{{sfn|Ingrao|Szabo|2007|p=262}}
In regard to the East Prussia plebiscite, historian Richard Blanke wrote that "no other contested ethnic group has ever, under un-coerced conditions, issued so one-sided a statement of its national preference".{{sfn|Ingrao|Szabo|2007|p=262}} Richard Debo wrote "both Berlin and Warsaw believed the [[Polish–Soviet War|Soviet invasion of Poland]] had influenced the East Prussian plebiscites. Poland appeared so close to collapse that even Polish voters had cast their ballots for Germany".{{sfn|Debo|1992|p=335}}

In regard to the Silesian plebiscite, Blanke observed "given that the electorate was at least 60% Polish-speaking, this means that about one 'Pole' in three voted for Germany" and "most Polish observers and historians" have concluded that the outcome of the plebiscite was due to "unfair German advantages of incumbency and socio-economic position". Blanke alleged "coercion of various kinds even in the face of an allied occupation regime" occurred, and that Germany granted votes to those "who had been born in Upper Silesia but no longer resided there". Blanke concluded that despite these protests "there is plenty of other evidence, including Reichstag election results both before and after 1921 and the large-scale emigration of Polish-speaking Upper Silesians to Germany after 1945, that their identification with Germany in 1921 was neither exceptional nor temporary" and "here was a large population of Germans and Poles—not coincidentally, of the same Catholic religion—that not only shared the same living space but also came in many cases to see themselves as members of the same national community".{{sfn|Bullivant|Giles|Pape|1999|pp=43–44}} Prince [[Eustachy Sapieha]], the Polish [[Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Poland)|Minister of Foreign Affairs]], alleged that Soviet Russia "appeared to be intentionally delaying negotiations" to end the Polish-Soviet War "with the object of influencing the Upper Silesian plebiscite".{{sfn|Debo|1992|p=335}} Once the region was partitioned, both "Germany and Poland attempted to 'cleanse' their shares of Upper Silesia" via oppression resulting in Germans migrating to Germany and Poles migrating to Poland. Despite the oppression and migration, Opole Silesia "remained ethnically mixed."{{sfn|Ther|Siljak|2001|p=123}}

Frank Russell wrote that, in regard to the Saar plebiscite, the inhabitants "were not terrorized at the polls" and the "totalitarian [Nazi] German regime was not distasteful to most of the Saar inhabitants and that they preferred it even to an efficient, economical, and benevolent international rule." When the outcome of the vote became known, 4,100 (including 800 refugees who had previously fled Germany) residents fled over the border into France.{{sfn|Russell|1951|pp=103–106}}

===Military terms and violations===
During the formulation of the treaty, the British wanted Germany to abolish conscription but be allowed to maintain a volunteer Army. The French wanted Germany to maintain a conscript army of up to 200,000 men in order to justify their own maintenance of a similar force. Thus the treaty's allowance of 100,000 volunteers was a compromise between the British and French positions. Germany, on the other hand, saw the terms as leaving them defenseless against any potential enemy.{{sfn|Schmitt|1960|pp=104–105}}
Bernadotte Everly Schmitt wrote that "there is no reason to believe that the Allied governments were insincere when they stated at the beginning of Part V of the Treaty ... that in order to facilitate a general reduction of the armament of all nations, Germany was to be required to disarm first." A lack of American ratification of the treaty or joining the League of Nations left France unwilling to disarm, which resulted in a German desire to rearm.{{sfn|Schmitt|1960|p=104}} Schmitt argued "had the four Allies remained united, they could have forced Germany really to disarm, and the German will and capacity to resist other provisions of the treaty would have correspondingly diminished."{{sfn|Schmitt|1960|p=108}}

Max Hantke and Mark Spoerer wrote "military and economic historians [have] found that the German military only insignificantly exceeded the limits" of the treaty before 1933.{{sfn|Hantke|Spoerer|2010|p=852}} [[Adam Tooze]] concurred, and wrote "To put this in perspective, annual military spending by the Weimar Republic was counted not in the billions but in the hundreds of millions of ''Reichsmarks''"; for example, the Weimar Republic's 1931 program of 480&nbsp;million ''Reichsmarks'' over five years compared to the Nazi Government's 1933 plan to spend 4.4&nbsp;billion ''Reichsmarks'' per year.{{sfn|Tooze|2007|pp=26, 53–54}}
P. M. H. Bell argued that the British Government was aware of later Weimar rearming, and lent public respectability to the German efforts by not opposing them,{{sfn|Bell|1997|p=229}} an opinion shared by Churchill.{{Citation needed|date=January 2021}}
[[Norman Davies]] wrote that "a curious oversight" of the military restrictions were that they "did not include rockets in its list of prohibited weapons", which provided [[Wernher von Braun]] an area to research within eventually resulting in "his break [that] came in 1943" leading to the development of the [[V-2 rocket]].{{sfn|Davies|2007|p=416}}

=== Rise of the Nazis ===
The Treaty created much resentment in Germany, which was exploited by [[Adolf Hitler]] in his rise to power at the helm of Nazi Germany. Central to this was belief in the [[stab-in-the-back myth]], which held that the German army had not lost the war and had been betrayed by the Weimar Republic, who negotiated an unnecessary surrender. The Great Depression exacerbated the issue and led to a collapse of the German economy. Though the treaty may not have caused the crash, it was a convenient scapegoat. Germans viewed the treaty as a humiliation and eagerly listened to Hitler's oratory which blamed the treaty for Germany's ills. Hitler promised to reverse the depredations of the Allied powers and recover Germany's lost territory and pride, which has led to the treaty being cited as a [[Causes of World War II|cause of World War&nbsp;II]].{{sfn|Wilde|2020}}{{sfn|Kent|2019|pp=275–279}}{{failed verification|date=March 2022}}

[[Hermann Göring]] first met Adolf Hitler at a speech which Hitler gave at a rally against French demands for the extradition of alleged German war criminals under the Versailles treaty.{{sfn|Bassiouni|2002|p=268}}