What was the Treaty of Versailles?
The Treaty of Versailles is also known in history as "an imposed peace" i.e. "accused treaty". The Treaty of Versailles was harsh, humiliating, accusatory, unilateral and unjust.
The possibility of World War II had happened since the time of the 1919 Peace Conference. The victorious nations made the humiliating Treaty of Versailles with Germany. The germs of World War II were present in this treaty. By this treaty a great injustice was done to Germany. He was forced to sign the treaty under threat of force.
Germany was stripped of the province of Alsace-Lorraine and the small kingdom of Schleswig, dismembered by building a corridor for Poland, losing all its colonies, depriving the Saar region of mines for fifteen years. and in this way many other territorial damages were inflicted.
A huge amount of compensation was imposed on Germany by depriving her of economic resources and an attempt was made to recover it with great ruthlessness. For this, France also took control of Germany's Ruhr region and the German residents there were subjected to severe atrocities.
Although Germany was besieged by a dire economic crisis, yet no mercy was shown to her in terms of compensation. Germany was completely disarmed by the Treaty of Versailles. Although the Allies had assured Germany that they would also reduce their stock of weapons, they never took any step in this direction.
Every effort was made to humiliate Germany. It was a mere misadventure to expect Germany, in this condition, to keep silent and bear these humiliations and do nothing to retaliate. The Allies also understood very well the fact that as soon as Germany would get the first opportunity, it would try to wash off this stigma and in short a second war would also break out. That is why, the famous French general Marshal Foch said in 1919 itself - "The Treaty of Versailles is not a treaty of peace, but only an armistice for twenty years."
After the defeat in the war, democracy was established in Germany and the Weimar Constitution was drafted. The roots of the Weimar Republic were not yet settled that many complex problems were presented to it. At the root of all these problems was the system established by the Treaty of Versailles. The states of Europe never treated democratic Germany with sympathy and did not give any help to it, so that the feeling of peace-loving should grow among the people there.
On the contrary, taking advantage of Germany's compulsion, they began to harass it, leading to extraordinary conditions in Germany—conditions which the Weimar Republic was utterly unsuccessful in coping with and completely fell in the eyes of the German people.
The name of the Weimar Republic was associated with humiliation, stigma, distress, plight and lack of sympathy among the German people, thus the republic's base in Germany remained weak. The Nazi Party of Germany benefited the most from this. The leader of this party was Hitler, who clearly stated that his main objective was to take revenge for the humiliation of Germany by breaking the Treaty of Versailles.
He blamed the Treaty of Versailles for all Germany's troubles and promised the German people that if he came to persecution, his first task would be to wash off this stigma. This program attracted the people of Germany to him and the number of his followers started increasing.
Due to the economic downturn of 1929-30, Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany, after the death of President Hindenburg in 1934. Became.
After this, Hitler resorted to a very aggressive policy and brought the world to the brink of terrible destruction. He began manufacturing armaments on a large scale and made military service compulsory in Germany.
This was a clear violation of the Treaty of Versailles, but none of the superpowers (not even France) effectively opposed it. Soon Germany became a great power from the military point of view. The Rhineland was demilitarized by the Treaty of Versailles.
But, Hitler did not care about it and in 1935, by sending an army, he took over this area and started fortification there. Even on this occasion, Britain and France could not oppose him and Hitler was allowed to do anything arbitrarily. This encouraged Hitler and in March 1938 he ended the existence of Austria as an independent state and annexed it to the German Empire.
Even on this occasion, no voice of protest was heard from anywhere, so without fear, Hitler raised the question of the Sudten land area of Czechoslovakia. The majority of the population of the Sudten land land was German, and Hitler began to campaign smugly that the government of Czechoslovakia was treating Sudten Germans with great cruelty. He demanded that the entire Sudten area be handed over to Germany, otherwise Germany would invade Czechoslovakia and capture this territory.
Several attempts were made to reach a settlement on this question, but to no avail, and it appeared that a war would break out among the major European nations over the Sudden-Problem. Lokan, Britain and France shied away from war and wanted to solve the problem through dialogue. He tried to stop the outbreak of war by sacrificing Czechoslovakia. It was in this background that the Munich Conference and the Agreement were held and Hitler got what he wanted.
There was also no attempt to stop the aggressive action of other fascist forces. In 1931, Japan invaded China and occupied the territory of Manchuria. Its complaint reached the League of Nations, but no action was taken against it.
The release of one criminal naturally encourages another. This is what happened on an international scale, when Mussolini invaded Abyssinia, Abyssinia, like China, appealed to the League of Nations, but no action was taken on her complaint.
The release of one criminal naturally encourages another. This is what happened on an international scale, when Mussolini invaded Abyssinia, Abyssinia, like China, appealed to the League of Nations, but no action was taken on her complaint.
In this way small and weak nations kept getting beaten up and the principle of collective security was violated. This was not the fault of the League of Nations. The blame was on those nations, especially Britain and France, who deliberately adopted the policy of weakening the League of Nations and kept making fun of the principle of collective security. .
Why did Britain and France follow such a policy? The policy followed by Britain and France is now called the policy of appeasement. The basis of the policy of appeasement was the belief that if some of the grievances of Hitler and Mussolini were addressed, they would be satisfied and all problems would be resolved peacefully.
But, this was his great mistake. His biggest mistake was his erroneous belief that the cravings and aspirations of Hitler and Mussolini could also be quelled. The policy-makers of Britain and France, in fact, wanted to divert the aggressive intentions of Hitler and Mussolini against Soviet communism.
They were terrorized by the communist Soviet Union and wanted communism and fascism to clash with each other and destroy each other by fighting each other. At the core of the policy of appeasement was mainly the anti-Soviet sentiments of the Western nations. But, in 1939, the six of the western nations were not completed.
The anger of the dictators came not on the Soviet Union, but on the nations supported by the West, when Hitler started World War II by taking military action against Poland.
Major Articles of the Treaty of Versailles
After being defeated in the First World War, Germany signed the Treaty of Versailles on 28 June 1919. This treaty was written in 230 pages and this treaty had 15 parts and 440 sections. The main clauses of the Treaty of Versailles were as follows-
1- Alsace-Lauren, Mars Net, Ukraine, Malmedy, Upper Silesia, Mammal, Posen etc. territories were snatched from Germany and given to France, Belgium, Lithuania and Poland. According to the terms of the treaty, the territories of Alsace-Lorraine were given back to France.
2- The Rhineland of Germany was disarmament and French control over the Saar Valley was established.
3- The Saar region in Germany was famous for coal production. The responsibility of governance of this region was handed over to the League of Nations, but the ownership of the coal mines was given to France.
3- All the colonies in Africa and Asia of Germany were divided among themselves by the Allies under the Mandate system.
4- The limit of Germany's land army was fixed at one lakh and compulsory military service of Germany was banned.
5- Strict sanctions were imposed on the German Navy. Now he could keep only 6 light warships, 6 light cruisers [freight ships] and 12 destroyers of 10000 tons. Their submarines were also snatched, there was talk of handing over these submarines to the Allies. Simultaneously, the staff of the German army was disbanded.
6- Germany suffered the most on the eastern border. The Leakoff Nation's control over Germany's port of Djing has been established.
7- Germany's rivers and Nile canal were internationalized.
8- Heavy war damages were imposed on Germany and it was asked to pay 5 billion dollars as compensation by May, 1921 AD.
9- Germany's trading rights were also abolished from Morocco, Egypt, Bulgaria, China etc.
10- According to the 231st section of the treaty, Germany was held liable for the First World War and it was decided to prosecute Emperor Kaiser William II as a war criminal.
Significance of the Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles is also known in history as "an imposed peace" i.e. "accused treaty". The Treaty of Versailles was harsh, humiliating, accusatory, unilateral and unjust. By this treaty, Germany was made politically unstable, militarily weak, socially humiliated and economically paralyzed. The Treaty of Versailles was forcibly imposed on Germany, for this reason Adolf Hitler and other Germans considered this treaty to be humiliating. This treaty was one of the main causes of World War II. Germany was torn apart by this treaty. This treaty dashed the hopes of those who used to say that the end of the war would bring a message of peace. This was not a peace treaty in the true sense, it proved to be a declaration of second world war.
General Fach had said at the time of the formulation of the treaty that the Treaty of Versailles is not a treaty but a period of 20 years.
According to Churchill, "the economic terms of this treaty were so slanderous and unintelligible that they made it apparently meaningless."
The Treaty of Versailles has a special place in the most discussed treaties and their effects in world history. In short, it is said that the Treaty of Versailles was imposed on Germany by the Allies in the spirit of revenge. Therefore it is believed that the germs of the Second World War were contained in the Treaty of Versailles.
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