Was the german opposition to the treaty of Versailles justified?
Not at all. Germany seemed to think that,unlike any other nation in history,they should be let off lightly for losing a long and bitter war that had been mainly responsible for starting.Cash indemnities,loss of territory,and military restrictions were things that had been a part of peace treaties since ancient times,and had all been included in the 1871 Treaty of Frankfurt after the Franco-Prussian War,to the detriment of France.Further,as one modern historian has pointed out,Versailles was "a slap on the wrist" compared to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that Germany had imposed on Russia in 1918. As for reparations,another modern historian has pointed out that payments were easily affordable by the Weimar government,if only the political will had been there to pay on time and in full (which it never was). Expressed as a percentage of Germany's GDP,the Defence budget plus Reparations payments were far smaller after WW1 than the annual Defence expenditure had been in Germany under the Kaiser;hyperinflation was caused by Germany's failure to pay Reparations on time,not because of the Reparations per se. The idea that the Treaty of Versailles was somehow a travesty and grossly unfair is a result of nearly a century of German whinging about it - as Hitler said,tell a lie loud enough and long enough,and people will come to believe it.
Was the Treaty of Versailles a success or a failure? ?
biggest failure ever. treaty of versailles would lead to the greate war, world war ii. germany had to pay reparations that were too severe this allowed hitler to rise to power by blaming it all on the jews. it was also a failure because the united states did not ratify the treaty, league of nations was to weak to survive
Reasons why the treaty of Versailles failed?
1 - Lack of will by the German Government to abide by the treaty 2 - German hostility to the treaty based off propaganda fueled anger 2 - The Americans not ratifying the treaty 4 - The lack of will amongst the British to enforce it, leaving the French as the lone nation to try to do so Katie: you have no idea what you are talking about. Of course it was one-sided, it was the treaty imposed by the victors upon the defeated. Germany was not forced to admit full responsibility for the war. There is nothing in the treaty that states that, go and read Article 231 - the war guilt clause. It was German propaganda that stated they were. Reparations were a common part of peace treaties, and the sum was entirely payable. Although I will grant you point 4 although the military restrictions were not the main cause of the German hatred for the treaty.
How did the Treaty of Versailles cause World War 2?
While it contributed somewhat to WW2, I don't think the Treaty of Versailles deserves as much of the rap and blame as it gets. I don’t think the Entente were too harsh with Germany after WW1 - something I wrote about in my answer to Why did the Treaty of Versailles make Germany pay so much money?The Germans moaned and got all melodramatic about the Treaty of Versailles , but it was relatively mild far as those things went, and less draconian than what the Germans would have imposed had they won. We don't even need a hypothetical for that - we know because when Russia sued for peace in 1917, the Germans imposed a draconian treaty, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk , that was orders of magnitude harsher than what they got when the shoe was on the other foot in the Treaty of Versailles. Indeed, when the Germans complained at Versailles, the Allies threw the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk at them, noting that what was demanded from Germany now was far less onerous than what Germany had demanded from Russia just a year earlier.And the last time the Germans won a war before that, at the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian War they imposed upon the defeated French the Treaty of Frankfurt (1871) , which was also harsher than the Treaty of Versailles.The problem wasn't that the victors demanded too much at Versailles. It was that they failed to enforce the terms of Versailles when Germany started violating them. Hitler basically punked them, especially with the reoccupation of the Rhineland, when the deck was stacked in the Allies' favor to smack him down at little cost to themselves, and the near certainty of bringing the Nazi regime to an early end in 1936.
Some main features of Treaty of Versailles?
1) Germany took full blame for war-----Serbian terrorist killed an Austrian-Hungarian Archduke, but the treaty blamed Germany. 2) Germany had to pay crippling war reparations. At that time it was believed that it would take Germany until 1988 to pay if Germany maintained payments. 3) Austrian-Hungarian Empire and Ottoman Empire were broken up and German lands were reduced which all led to creation of Turkey, Poland (a recreation of Poland but not the boundaries of today's Poland), Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, separate nations of Austria and Hungary, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania (USSR annexed these 3 in 1940), Saudi Arabia, British Protectorate of Transjordan (Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait_. 4) League of Nations were set-up 5) Alsace and Lorraine, German provinces where citizens spoke German and believed themselves German, were transferred to France. German territory in Africa was divided up by UK, France, or Belgium. German territory in Pacific was divided up by Japan, China, Australia, and New Zealand. 6) Restrictions on German military-----draft abolished, no air force, no subs, limits on numbers of manpower and ships, no tanks, no importation or exportation of weapons 7) Germany and Austria were forbidden from having diplomatic relations, military alliance or trade with each other.
Why was Germany allowed to disobey the Treaty of Versailles in WW2?
History always repeats itself and we only see that years and years later on. Exactly the same thing is happening right now. Iran wants nuclear weapons. Clearly, they should never be allowed to get them. (Unless as a nice present from America and/or Israel.) Iran is mixing empty promises with direct treads. Some nations who should know a lot better (Russia and China) support Iran even though they gain nothing in the long run. Germany did the same. They complained about the harshness of the Versailles treaty. Conveniently ignoring their own Brest-Litovsk treaty that was every bit as harsh, if not a good deal worse. They made empty promises that if they were only allowed this tiny concession, they would be satisfied. (Until the next one, that is.) If their "highly reasonable" demands were not met then.... England and France were not -yet- ready for war. It was for a time better to accommodate Germany than to provoke a war. At least, that was the general opinion. The 'broken rilfe' (anti-war) movement was very strong. The were able to make people believe anything (including mealy submitting) was better than war. Almost exactly the same as today....
Why did Hitler never ask for the renegotiation of Versailles agreement, so he never uses the hard way by war?
There is more to this question than it seems. Hitler was an unrelenting opponent of the Treaty of Versailles. He criticised it from his earliest speeches and in his book, Mein Kampf.But Hitler was not the only opponent of the Treaty, and the Treaty was already being undermined before the ink was dry on the paper. The German army evaded some of the disarmament provisions by sponsoring paramilitary forces (the Freikorps or Black Reichswehr). The German army also used its secret agreements with the Soviet Union to allow it to develop and training in prohibited technologies within Soviet territory (notably the Lipetsk fighter-pilot school, the Kama tank school and the Tomka chemical weapons facility).The German government undermined the requirement to pay World War I reparations by printing more money to fund this, leading to Hyperinflation.Hitler built on the existing breeches and kept pushing, at each step calculating that the Versailles signatories would be unwilling tor resist: commencing rearmament, Remilitarization of the Rhineland, the Anschluss and then the Czech crisis in 1938.And while Hitler did not renegotiate the Versailles treaty, he used diplomatic negotiations and treaties to undermine its provisions. These include:Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935, ostensibly intended to limit German naval rearmament, but it also had the effect of regularising the existing breeches.World Disarmament Conference became a forum for Germany to argue its case for rearmament.Munich Agreement permitted German annexation of parts of Czechoslavakia.
Why didn't the Treaty of Versailles let Germany exceed 100,000 men, including officers, in their army?
This clause was meant to limit German military power. An army numbering only 100,000 men under German command could not threaten France, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark or Austria. Germany would be unable to cause a second world war.By the way, the Treaty of Versailles also imposed other military restrictions, in particular a ban on R&D related to planes, tanks and submarines as weel as a prohibition to station troops in the Rhineland.After WW2, Germany could not have an army until 1955 and this army was directly under US authority (West Germany)/Russian authority (Eastern Germany).