Treaty of Versailles - War Starter?

Was the Treaty of Versailles the cause of World War one? if No, what was?

 

Well, unless your a time traveller then No it was certainly not...

Some may argue its involvement for ww2 but none for ww1 I should think.

 

World War 1's cause has been placed on the assasination of Archduke Franz Ferdinan (sp?) by Bosnian-Serbs

 

The Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919, after the end of World War One, so clearly it could not be the cause of World War One.

 

I think Winky meant WWII, not WWI. The treaty of Versailles of 1919 certainly contributed to the frustration/need of a revenge for Germany , but many other factors are to be included, Hitler , the great depression, the NSDAP, Hindenburgs attitude , the occupation of the Ruhr, Munich etc....
There are too many factors to claim it was the cause which led to WWII

 

Ok, I think we knew what you meant really....Its been discussed on here certainly.

Unless someone wants to link to the thread or search for you, you can use the search facility..

Type in Versailles or I think the most recent one was causes of world war 2, but along those lines.

Good luck

 

It might not of started the war, but it certainly led to it.

The "Slave Treaty" turned Germany into a prime breeding ground for people like Hitler.

 

Actually the Dawes Plan had reveresed that hyper-inflation and unemployment while Hitler was still a rabble-rousing beer hall speaker. Much to his dismay. The "reparations" had been put on hold the year before he came to power, and both the Dawes and Young plans (if allowed to come completely to fruition) could have kept Weimar Germany in the "black" on her books.

"Slave Treaty"? Why that name? One must remember that the policy of war reparations were the norm, not the exception at the turn of the century, and those demanded of Germany were less draconian than those the Germans had imposed on the French after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71.

The French paid their reparations on time in gold even though the entire war had been fought on French soil and the new Unified German nation suffered almost NO damage to itself from the war. There was NO WAY the French weren’t going to demand the reparations this time as they were on the side of the winners. The French were without doubt going to demand reparation money.

For an interesting run-down on reparations, and its effects on the German economy goto:

The Dawes Plan, the Young Plan, German Reparations, and Inter-allied War Debts

BTW, if the use of "ethnic language" had been used as a guide for "borders" of the post-WW1 Germany, it would have been larger after the war than it was before the war. And before anyone claims the "why Germany" as to war responsibility alone, it should be rememebered that both Austro-Hungary and Turkey had already surrendered before the Kaiser's government. If they are the only ones left fighting, and the only ones who need a treaty, they are the ones (alone) who are going to have to take "war responsibility".

 

Well said.

 

Well said, it wasn't one "thing". It seems to have been a "perfect storm" in the political and economic realms which began to formulate what became WW2.

The collapse of "absolute monarchy", the impositon of "democracy" on a set of nations which had NO concept, nor history of this form of government, and the desire/hope of the Germanic peoples to look to a "strong man" to make the decisions.

 

The Treaty of Versailles was at the end of the 1st world war...

The first world war and its back story go back to 1879... in a nutshell... far as I've been told...
Germany and Austria-Hungry sign a pact creating a dual alliance...
Treaties with different nations were forming and dissolving... the Ottoman Empire was weakening...
Germany and England began an arms race...
Borders were growing and Austria-Hungry annexed Bosnia from the Ottoman Empire...
The Russians got all bent out of shape...
Then there was 2 Balkan wars - the second lasting 33 days...
and finally the feather that broke the camels back...
Gavrilo Princip - a student and Bosnian national ... assassinated the soon to be big cheese...
Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the Austria-Hungry gave a set of ultimatums at Serbia... when Serbia didn't complete all 10 (only 8 or somethin like that) - Austria-Hungry declared war and asked Germany to help.... they did but not the same way Austria-Hungry wanted... things get snaky from there...
the war basically was stopping in 1918 with multiple armistices with different countries... the Treaty of Versailles was signed in June of 1919... but still not the "official" end of the war... which came with the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, (lil known fact).

Most Germans felt it was a soft surrender and felt the Treaty of Versailles was way to harsh... and that was the brewing catalyst for Hitler's Third Reich... which according to Simon Wiesenthal began when Hitler contracted syphillis from a jewish hooker in 1910

 

What about German megalomania and militarism as causes for both world wars?

Also, as Churchill clearly implies in The Gathering Storm, Versailles should have been harsher, not at all softer.

 

The 1st world war had more to do with Austrian than German megalomania...
As for Militarism... England and Russia were just as guilty...

And clearly Churchill was just a man... he made mistakes... I personally disagree with the implication of harsher atonement of the German State in the Treaty of Versailles... Had they had a much more 'civilized' accordance to the end of WWI - we likely wouldn't have had the gap for a smooth talker to spark the anger most Germans already felt at the time. Considering Germany suffered the Great Depression years before the rest of the world did.

 

The actual "event" that sparked WWII was Nazi Germany invading Poland...
At that point England snapped... They lost it... and ever since they've been the Champ!

 

England snapped ..? I rather think Chamberlain was pretty powerless to do anything apart from sit & watch. Declaring war against the Germans and then letting Stalin wander into eastern Poland without any sort of declaration at all. You could even argue that the event that sparked WWII was Polish oppression of the German minority in Danzig

 

Neville Chamberlain believed that the Treaty of Versailles had treated Germany badly and that there were a number of issues associated with the Treaty that needed to be put right. He gave in to many of Hitler's actions against the Treaty to prevent war. His government come to know this as the policy of Appeasement. Hitler and Chamberlain made an agreement in Munich in 1938 for peace... and then Hitler broke the agreement invading Czechoslovakia... That's when Chamberlain gave Poland a promise to aid if Hitler invaded them. Hitler marched a bunch of troops along the Polish/German border and presented it to the world as a threat to Germany... He invaded and Great Britain declared war.

 

Its been said that WW2 started in 1918 and thats probably not far wrong. In 1918 the Germans were actually WINNING the war to some extent. They had beaten the Tzarist Russians in the east (a victory that perhaps planted dangerous ideas in the mind of then-corporal Hitler) and were now free to turn all their efforts to victory in the West.

The German surrender came as a surprise to many German soldiers, who felt sold-out and resentful that all their efforts had come to nothing when they were on the verge of victory. (Hitler himself spent almost the entire war in the trenches, 1914-1918, and earned the Iron cross, an award not given lightly to enlisted men.) When Hitler heard the news of the armistice, he was recovering in an army hospital from a poison gas attack. To say the surrender upset him would be an understatement.

The subsequent Versaille treaty, German loss of Alsace-lorraine and other territories, and the humiliating reparations Germany was forced to pay merely fueled hyperinflation, political instability and even more resentment. Hitler used this resentment among a large section of the population to claw his way to power, by promising to throw out Versailles and restore Germany to its former glory, and a majority of Germans bought into it. By the time they realized they had a monster on their hands, it was too late for any German to do anything about it until Germany, and Hitler, was destroyed.

 

Not sure BEATEN is a proper term..... The war in East for Germany was not exactly going well either. Germany had no resources left to advance in the east and just like Russia needed a quick end to the conflict as she was once again fighting a two front war and urgently needed to reinforce the west. This is where Lenin came in.

 

The treaty itself was not the cause but the way in which the treaty was reached was very much a cause. Germany was not even allowed at the table and that was a huge blow to the prestige of the young Weimar Republic. As has been pointed out, Germany was not doing all that badly in WWI and the French and English should have recognized that excluding Germany from consideration was only going to weaken Germany's government in the eyes of a militant and nationalistic population.

As Lou has pointed out, however, we really cannot attribute the start of the war to any one event. It was the culmination of a totality of circumstances and largely motivated by the desire of Italy, Germany and Japan to enjoy the power that colonial empires had brought to England and France, while England and France sought to preserve their own weakening empires.