HaCKeRz KrOnIcKLeZ 3/HaCKeRz_KrOnIcKLeZ.iso/anarchy/essays/schoolsucks/wwi.txt

Text File | 1996-04-27 | 3KB | 48 lines

History
How the Treaty of Versailles Effected Germany

     Wen World War I ended on November 11, 1918, peace talks went on for
months due to the Allied leaders wanting to punish the enemy and
ôdividing the spoils of war.ö
     A formal agreement to end the war was made and called the Treaty of
Versailles.  The issue that took the most time were the territorial
issues because the empires of Russia, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman, and
Germany had collapsed.  These fallen empires had to be divided up and
AmericaÆs President Woodrow Wilson, Georges Clemenceau of France,
Vittorio Orlando of Italy, and David Lloyd George of Great Britain, were
the main deciders of this deal.
     During 1918, Russia was knocked out of the war due to military
defeats and the Bolshevik Revolution.  Even though Russia had not been
part of the Central Powers, Germany seized much of western Russia.
After many months of arguing, the four men had made western Russia into
the nations of Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Poland.
     The Treaty of Versailles was either a treaty of peace or a
vengeance for the Germans.  In April of 1919, Germany was previously
captured and made to wait in a small house that was surrounded with
barbed wire.
     The Allied, who captured Germany, wanted to make a peace treaty to
end the fighting.  The Germans agreed, but they wanted a treaty that was
based on the Fourteen Points but obviously they were not going to get it
because of the way they were treated; the barbed wire was unnecessary
and ôshould have tipped them off to what lay ahead.ö
     When the treaty was first introduced to the Germans, they declined
to sign it.  It forced the Germans to accept full responsibility for the
war and strip themselves of its colonies, coal fields, and the provinces
of Alsace and Lorraine.  It also made them pay outrageous reparations to
the Allies.  Nevertheless, on June 28, 1919, the Germans reluctantly
signed the treaty because the Allies refused to change one word.  Out of
the $33 billion dollars the Germans had to pay for damages, the country
was only able to pay $4.5 billion of it.
     The terms of the Treaty of Versailles helped set the stage for
another world war less than 20 years later because the Allied wanted to
stop Germany from ever becoming imperialistic again and still have them
pay the war reparations.
     Germany opposed these actions and was the most effected by the
terms of the Versailles Treaty.  Germany got the blunt end of the war
and was desperate to find a new leader to get out of their depression.
That leader was Adolf Hitler.
     World War I was won by the Allied in which a formal agreement was
made called the Versailles Treaty.  It both brought peace and war in the
coming years.  Due to the harsh life styles it forced Germany to live,
World War II broke out within twenty years time from the treaty.