Was The Treaty Of Versailles Fair On Germany?

Was the Treaty of Versailles fair on Germany?









































Index


Introduction 2

Causes of the First World War 3

The First World War 3

The Paris Peace Conference 4

Conclusion 6

Bibliography 7

Introduction

In 1914, the tension in Europe was very high. So, some countries joined to formalliances. The two alliances were the Triple Entent, conformed by Britain, France and Russia, and the Triple Alliance, conformed by Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. In August of 1914, the First World War was declared. In fact, people thought that it was going to last until Christmas and everybody thought their own country was going to win with a great victory. But things were not as they expected, astalemate was created so the war continued until 1918, when Germany, decided to make an armistice so that the Allies made a better treaty. In January 1919, the Allies got together to sign the treaties for the defeated countries. After several discussions, they signed the Treaty of Versailles, the Treaty of St. Germain, The Treaty of Neuilly, the Treaty of Trianon and the Treaty of Sévres. Betweenall this, the most important one was the Treaty of Versailles which dealt with Germany. In our project, we will discuss if the treaty was fair or not on Germany. Textual reference will be provided to support our ideas.

Our hypothesis is that the Treaty of Versailles was unfair on Germany because the main terms of the treaty were too harsh on Germany and turned it into a chaos. So in ouropinion we think that although Germany had shown that if they had the power they would have done worst treaties just like they had done it before in the treaty of Brest Litovsk[1]; the treaty should not have been so harsh.










Causes of the First World War

Before 1914, the mood in Europe was full of tension. To begin with, there was rivalry between countries all overEurope. Countries had more colonies around the world. This idea of challenging the other ones to see who had more colonies was called imperialism. This was one of the main problems between the countries which in a future would lead to form alliances. One of the problems was between Germany and France because they both wanted to have the control of Marocco and that finally France ended having it. Apartfrom that, there were also problems in the Balkans mainly because it had access to the Mediterranean and bordered countries such as Russia and Austria that wanted this access. Also, rivalry arose because everyone wanted to show that they had the best army in the world. And because of this people knew a big war was about to start so the countries joined forming alliances. The two alliances were theTriple Alliance, conformed by Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy, and the Triple Entente made up by France, Great Britain and Russia. For the reasons mentioned before, an arms race was started. This meant that the countries began improving the armies so that they could win the war and to show that they had the best army in the world. Because of this reasons, the tension in the years before theFirst World War was too much so everybody was looking for a reason to start the war. The final reason for which the First World War started was because of the murder in Sarajevo where Archduke Ferdinand of Austria was killed by 6 teenage terrorists called the Bosnian Serb. So because of this Austria blamed Serbia for the death and sent it an ultimatum which is a demand that may turn to the use offorce. Five days later Austria declared war on Serbia


The First World War

In 1914 the war was declared. Everybody was waiting anxiously for the WWI because they thought that it was going to last a very short period of time and they wanted to go because they felt that they were fighting for their country. After some time the war reached a Stalemate. This was a deadlock where neither...