The History of The Treaty of Versailles

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The Treaty of Versailles was the most important of the peace treaties that brought World War I to an end. The Treaty ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919 in the Palace of Versailles, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which led to the war. The other Central Powers on the German side signed separate treaties. Although the armistice, signed on 11 November 1918, ended the actual fighting, it took six months of Allied negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. The treaty was registered by the Secretariat of the League of Nations on 21 October 1919. Of the many provisions in the treaty, one of the most important and controversial being that: "The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies." (the other members of the Central Powers signed treaties containing similar articles). This article, Article 231, later became known as the War Guilt clause. The treaty required Germany to disarm, make ample territorial concessions, and pay reparations to certain countries that had formed the Entente powers. In 1921 the total cost of these reparations was assessed at 132 billion gold marks (then $31.4 billion or £6.6 billion, roughly equivalent to US$442 billion or UK£284 billion in 2022). At the time economists, notably John Maynard Keynes (a British delegate to the Paris Peace Conference), predicted that the treaty was too harsh—a "Carthaginian peace"—and said the reparations figure was excessive and counter-productive, views that, since then, have been the subject of ongoing debate by historians and economists. On the other hand, prominent figures on the Allied side, such as French Marshal Ferdinand Foch, criticized the treaty for treating Germany too leniently. The result of these competing and sometimes conflicting goals among the victors was a compromise that left no one satisfied, and, in particular, Germany was neither pacified nor conciliated, nor was it permanently weakened. The problems that arose from the treaty would lead to the Locarno Treaties, which improved relations between Germany and the other European powers, and the re-negotiation of the reparation system resulting in the Dawes Plan, the Young Plan, and the indefinite postponement of reparations at the Lausanne Conference of 1932. The treaty has sometimes been cited as a cause of World War II: although its actual impact was not as severe as feared, its terms led to great resentment in Germany which powered the rise of the Nazi Party. Although it is often referred to as the "Versailles Conference", only the actual signing of the treaty took place at the historic palace. Most of the negotiations were in Paris, with the "Big Four" meetings taking place generally at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Quai d'Orsay.

0:00:00 - intro
0:00:13 - Summary
0:01:00 - First World War
0:01:07 - US shapes the peace terms with the Fourteen Points
0:01:51 - Armistice
0:01:57 - Occupation
0:02:07 - Blockade
0:02:16 - Negotiations
0:02:48 - French aims
0:03:14 - British aims
0:03:31 - American aims
0:04:03 - Italian aims
0:04:34 - Treaty content and signing
0:04:45 - Territorial changes
0:05:09 - Mandates
0:05:22 - Military restrictions
0:05:54 - Reparations
0:06:06 - Guarantees
0:06:14 - International organizations
0:07:07 - Britain
0:08:04 - Status of British Dominions
0:08:12 - France
0:08:34 - Italy
0:08:51 - Portugal
0:09:03 - United States
0:09:32 - Edward House's views
0:09:47 - China
0:10:03 - Germany
0:10:24 - Japan
0:10:37 - Reparations
0:11:10 - Territorial changes
0:11:17 - Rhineland occupation
0:11:27 - Reparations
0:11:34 - Military
0:12:24 - Territorial
0:12:32 - Historical assessments
0:14:22 - Territorial changes
0:15:28 - Military terms and violations
0:16:00 - Rise of the Nazis
0:16:21 - outro

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