Answer to Question #296391 in History for golden

Question

create a theory of how the Treaty of Versailles eventually led to World War II.

Answer 1

The treaty was lengthy, and ultimately did not satisfy any nation. Most importantly, Article 231 of the treaty placed all blame for inciting the war squarely on Germany, and forced it to pay several billion in reparations to the Allied nations. From the moment the leaders of the victorious Allied nations arrived in France for the peace conference in early 1919, the post-war reality began to diverge sharply from Wilson’s idealistic vision.

Though the Versailles Treaty, signed with Germany in June 1919, was the most famous outcome of the Paris Peace Conference, the Allies also had separate treaties with Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary and Turkey, and the formal peacemaking process wasn’t concluded until the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne in July 1923.

The Versailles Treaty forced Germany to give up territory to Belgium, Czechoslovakia and Poland, return Alsace and Lorraine to France and cede all of its overseas colonies in China, Pacific and Africa to the Allied nations. In addition, it had to drastically reduce its armed forces and accept the demilitarization and Allied occupation of the region around the Rhine River. Most importantly, Article 231 of the treaty placed all blame for inciting the war squarely on Germany, and forced it to pay several billion in reparations to the Allied nations. Faced with the seemingly impossible task of balancing many competing priorities, the treaty ended up as a lengthy and confusing document that satisfied no one. “It literally is an attempt to remake Europe,” says Michael Neiberg, professor of history at U.S. Army War College and author of The Treaty of Versailles: A Concise History (2017).