Essay on Treaty of Versailles

'Vicious and short-sighted' – How far do you agree with this assessment of the Treaty of Versailles?

The Treaty of Versailles took place at the end of the World War I and was made by the winners of this war: Clemenceau (France), Lloyd George (Britain) and Wilson (USA). To me this Treaty is very vicious and not as short sighted as plenty say. To me vicious means: to destroy lot of things but not all and the desire of seeing others in pain. And short sighted means, again for me, that they did not think about the consequences on the future of what they did.

In the first place we can talk about the reparations that Germany had to pay to the Allied. Germany had to pay 132 billions gold marks, they had to pay approximately 6,6 pounds per years until 1988. By asking that the allied just thought about seeking Germany because you cannot live with that debt for 69 years. This was very short sighted and vicious also by the amount of money asked and the Big Three just thought about their country and not the German people who were not concerned by the War and all its damages, the reparations were very selfish.

After we should talk about the territorial losses. Germany lost the Alsace-Lorraine, which was returned to France and the Saar with lot of coal mines was given to France for 50 years. Germany also lost the Polish Corridor which was given to Poland and was forbidden to unite with Austria again. With all those losses, Germany had lost 7 millions of people so lot of population and especially people who could have payed taxes and helped for the reparations. The German army could not go to the Rhineland, which was demilitarized. Germany also lost all its colonies, which were given to France and Britain. All those losses made Germany less able to pay the reparations because with less inhabitant there is less money from the taxes.

In third time we will talk about the military terms in the treaty. The German army was restricted to 100 000 men and 6 battleships, they did not the right to have submarines and an air force. These measures were the idea of Clemenceau, he did not want a German invasion again. Lloyd George also won his arguments: he destroyed the German navy and so he consolidated the British supremacy on seas. That made Germany less powerful against lot of countries. That made plenty of people less safe in Germany and The Big Three did not care about German people or they cared and so that was very very very vicious against them. This was selfish and very vicious to Germany.

Then we should examine the Blame: the Allied made Germany responsible of all the damages of the World War I and only Germany had to pay war indemnities and not its allies. It was vicious because the article 231 is often badly read and lot of people think so that Germany was the only one the war happened and so German people are even still blamed now for the World War I. It proves also that it was short sighted because I think that the Big Three just thought about their time accusing Germany like that just to destroy it even more than just with the reparations, the territorial losses and the military restrictions.

In conclusion we can say that the Treaty of Versailles was vicious and short-sighted but it was also very unfair because: The Big three just thought about themselves and the inhabitant of their countries but they did not think about the German people

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