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The
leaders who drafted the Treaty
Four main world leaders were
involved in drafting the treaty. They were – David Lloyd George of
Britain, Georges Clemenceau of France, Woodrow Wilson of the United States
and Vittorio Orlando of Italy. Needless to say, even among these leaders,
the major decision makers were the British, French and American leaders. The countries defeated in the war had absolutely no say in the
drafting of the treaty and even the smaller powers on the Allied side had
little or no say in matter.
What
the treaty required of Germany:
Defense
limitations
The treaty of Versailles
made quite an impact on Germany. Germany was required to make a lot of
changes in its defense structure. They were asked to reduce the strength
of all the wings of their defense services and to aid this they had to
abolish the practice of compulsory military service in the country. They
were also asked to stop all activities related to production and trade in
war material. Germany was also served with a deadline within which to
achieve complete all these requirements.
Monetary
compensation
The terms of the treaty included asking Germany to
compensate in both cash and kind the damages suffered by the Allied forces
during the War. This was a very touchy and volatile situation. A lot of
difficulties were faced and the situation had to be reviewed a few years
later. A commission was set up to assess the amount of damages suffered by
the civilian population as a result of the War. And a figure of
$33,000,000,000 was quoted in 1921.
Territorial
adjustments
Germany was also asked to
recognize the territorial sovereignty of Belgium, Poland, Czechoslovakia
and Austria. Germany was also asked to relinquish some of the territory it
had conquered in Europe. Plebiscites were held in certain controversial
regions to solve the issue of allocation between two countries. The League
of Nations, the first international peacekeeping body, was made
responsible for overseeing all these operations. There were a lot of disagreements regarding the territorial
reallocation, as the countries involved had got into several agreements
with each other. The territorial demands of the treaty reduced the
territory and population held by Germany by ten per cent.
The
failure of the Treaty
In the years that
followed, the Treaty of Versailles was revised and altered, mostly in
favor of Germany, as many of the strictures were found to be to stringent
and harsh. The effects of the Peace Treaty of Versailles were not as
desired.
With the rise of Adolf Hitler, German militarism saw a fresh upsurge and
finally resulted in another World War. Historians lay the blame at the
harshness and bias of the Treaty and its subsequent non-supervision.
Hitler flouted the agreement several times and the Allied forces did not
even question his actions. The ground had been prepared for the next war,
which again took on massive proportions and came to be known as World War
II.
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