Ruminating on the Great War and Subsequent Failed Peace
Posted at 3:59 pm on Thursday, June 25, 2009, in Reading, and tagged hitler, ww1, ww2.
What to say of Paris 1919. It was truly remarkable to learn of such a consequential and ultimately fatal document. Without getting too professorial,1 this is what went wrong…
- The Germans were not thoroughly defeated in the war. Following the armistice in November, the German armies were greeted as victors in the cities, complete with parades. The communities never felt the defeat, they never saw the Allied tanks rolling through Berlin. They didn’t lose.
- The Peace Commission failed to deal with the Germans in a timely manner. It wasn’t until May that the Germans even saw the treaty (although they had heard rumors). In the meantime, they were grasping to false hopes of Wilsonian self-determination.
- The Commission was trying to do too much. Alone from righting wrongs in Europe (Poland, Alsace-Lorraine, etc.), the Commission set forth on re-drawing the map in the Middle East and southeast Asia. It went beyond its expertise and spent too much time not concentrating on finalizing the German treaty.
- Colonialism remained a strong sentiment in the European powers. They were unwilling, Germany included, to give up their historic control in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, and they absentmindedly drew new borders.
- France had a great fear of German ambitions. However ultimately warranted, the mood of the peace treaty was tainted with anti-German sentiment. The Germans were forced to unilaterally de-militarize and pay reparations it was unable to afford, despite commission expert warnings that nothing good would amount from such harsh terms anyway.
- Isolationism was the prevailing mindset in Washington. The U.S. was unwilling to develop permanent alliances, unwilling to join and legitimize the mostly powerless League of Nations, and unwilling to push either France or Britain away from their claims throughout the world.
- Italy and Japan were up to no good; nationalism was spreading and nearly everyone declared their independence in eastern Europe; Bolshevism had enveloped Russia; and Greece wanted to restore their great empire of prior millennia.
- The Great Depression of the late twenties and thirties devastated the German economy, and worsened their ability to pay reparations, and made it equally financially impossible for other world powers in the League of Nations (or the U.S.) to enforce the terms of the treaty.
- Lastly, and probably most importantly, Germany was ready to erupt either way. The Treaty of Versailles was a convenient excuse. Hitler was hell-bent on world domination, and the extermination of peoples had nothing to do with the Great War and subsequent peace treaty.
It was illuminating to read of the great efforts (in detail) that were made to right the past wrongs, and to re-draw the map of the world in order to preserve the peace. Unfortunately, almost everything in the treaty has since been undone (except for maybe the Iraq boundary, which may not be a good thing), and the treaty has been cited as the principal cause of the Second World War. That may be too harsh an assessment, but that does not matter. The treaty did not work, and the world is still dealing with its aftermath.
Notes- By “professorial,” I mean acting as though I know what I am talking about, declaring this or that as fact or fiction, leveling opinion as absolute truths. I read a book. It was fascinating. This is what I learned, or I believe I’d learned. These are my take-away points. Take them as they are; but believe me, it’s true and I’m right. ↩
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