Question 1

Can the Origins of the Second World War be found in the Treaty of Versailles?

Paragraph 1

• Marshall Foch (France) declared the Treaty to be merely a 20 year truce i.e. the causes of conflict were not removed but suspended
• Key consideration: ‘the German question’ i.e. German sense of injustice caused by the settlement in particular the war guilt clause and reparations
• Loss of German territory in Europe not huge but significant in the number of Germans who saw themselves as living under foreign rule
• Germany saw treaty as a ‘diktat’ imposed without consultation
• Thus they did not regard themselves as morally bound by it

Paragraph 2

• Lloyd George tried to get a moderate settlement
• Said that for a lasting peace there must be ‘no causes of exasperation to the vanquished which will leave them violently seeking redress’
• Also said danger of new war because Germany would be surrounded by small states containing large numbers of Germans demanding reunion

Paragraph 3

• Not just the defeated nations that were unhappy
• Italy had been promised territories from the German, Austrian and Turkish Empires to persuade her to enter the war – the promises weren’t kept
• Mussolini and the Fascists exploited the resulting bitterness
• He justified the conquest of Abyssinia as compensation

Paragraph 4

• Basic weakness – trying to shape a new Europe on the basis of self-determination while denying that principle to Germany
• Versailles was a compromise between French demands for revenge and American idealism with Great Britain holding the breach
• French wanted a settlement that would weaken Germany to the extent that France could never again be threatened
• Not realistic to believe that Germany could be kept weak in keeping with French wishes
• No other country wanted to see Germany so disadvantaged
• Great Britain’s biggest consideration was how quickly Germany should be allowed to recover to provide a counterweight to French preponderance in Europe

Paragraph 5

• Versailles humiliated Germany while betraying France
• Early examples of Versailles’ failure to create conditions of permanent peace can be seen in the fury of the Nazi attack on the Treaty and in France’s exasperation displayed in the Ruhr occupation in 1923
• This later was universally disapproved of by France’s wartime allies
• There were other sources of European tension – extremism of inter-war politics
• Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 pre-dated Versailles
• Nazi hatred of the treaty was only one aspect of their stance – racism and anti-communism were equally powerful policies
• The emergence of expansionist Bolshevism and Germany’s resentment at her defeat existed independently of the peace settlement – Versailles was not the major influence causing inter-war hatred

Paragraph 6

• The treaty did not impose immutable policies on those states that signed it
• Foreign affairs remained a matter of choice
• If European powers had been less traditionally insular, cooperation could have made real advances - its failure to do so was not caused by Versailles
• Japan is a good example to refute the idea of cause and effect – gained greatly in territory and status from the peace – but it was her aggressive imperialism that was a major factor in bringing about a second world conflict

Paragraph 7

• By late 1920s Europe seemed to have recovered from the worst effects of war
• Germany was stabilised under Weimar Republic and reparation issue largely settled
• USSR progressing towards normalisation of its foreign relations and considering League of Nations’ membership
• Locarno had seemingly pointed the way to international cooperation

Paragraph 8

• All was shattered by 1929 economic crash
• Old fears and hostilities and fears re-emerged
• Brought Nazis to centre of political stage and intensified clash of Left and Right in Europe
• Insecurity intensified nationalism and mutual suspicion – problems that had dogged the peacemakers re-emerged
• Note - Versailles can be totally absolved in the matter of its economic effects
• JM Keynes criticised the settlement; spelling out the imbalances in world trade and finance which would cause a crisis
• The war and its aftermath exacerbated international problems but it didn’t necessarily cause them

Paragraph 9

• Speculations:
  • if USA hadn’t been isolationist
  • if inter-war statesmen had been of higher quality
  • if Great Britain and France had responded to Soviet overtures
  • if Hitler and Stalin had been different
• These ‘ifs’ suggest that it is poor historical judgement to merely dismiss the inter-war years as a time of irreversible decline towards a conflict created by the ramifications of the peace settlement of 1919
• League of Nations (most notable achievement of Versailles is often criticised as being unrealistic as a peace-keeping influence
• But – for the first time in history an attempt had been made to create a supra-national body with procedures which (if followed) would have kept the peace – these were not followed in the 1930s
• It is fair to say that World War II began in spite of the 1919 settlement not because of it.