The future of Germany

In many ways the territorial settlement which Ver­sailles established stored up problems for the future, not least in its reshaping of Germany. When the peacemakers came to determine Germany's fate, they did not apply the principal of self-determination rigidly. Largely at French insistence, France regained the lost province of Alsace-Lorraine and occupied the Saar—the key industrial area on Germany's western flank—in order to extract coal, steel, and iron. French troops also occupied the Rhineland, to ensure that Germany remained demilitarized, as the treaty insisted. Additionally, German politicians (and much of the population) resented the inclusion of Germans in the reconsti­tuted Poland. Poland had not existed as an independent state since the eighteenth century, but now it divided the vast bulk of Germany from East Prussia. This anomalous situation resulted from the peacemakers' determination that Poland should have an outlet to the sea at the port of Danzig (от Gdansk). Where was Danzig's right to self-determination, Germans demanded?

The territorial arrangements of 1919, under which Germany lost 13 per cent of her land and nearly seven million people, angered many Germans, pro­viding a potent grievance for Hitter's National Social­ists to manipulate in the 1930s. But what perhaps hurt even more was the inscription of German 'war guilt' into the treaty.

'War guilt' and reparations

The victors included the 'war guilt' clause largely in order to justify the extraction of swingeing repar­ations from Germany. Popular pressure in Britain and France encouraged the peacemakers to 'squeeze the German lemon until the pips squeak', a line most vigorously pursued by the French premier, Georges Clemenceau. The British Prime Minister, Lloyd George, also agreed that reparations should be exacted from Germany, though not at such a puni­tive level as France sought. The issue of exactly how much Germany should pay in reparations was in fact never settled at Versailles. Unable to agree, the allies left the matter to a Reparations Commission (and ultimately, the sum was scaled ever downwards).

While it is easy to understand why the economic dismemberment of Germany appealed to these leaders—punishing Germany was electorally popu­lar, and also seemed to guarantee future German inability to launch all-out wars—the wisdom of such a move was questionable. It was indeed called into question almost before the ink had dried on the treaty. In 1919, a women's international congress in Zurich predicted that the settlement would 'create all over Europe discords and animosities which can only lead to future wars ...' (Pettman, 1996: 109). In the same year, if from a rather different perspective, the eminent British economist, John Maynard Key­nes (an adviser to the British delegation at Versailles) produced an influential indictment of the treaty entitled The Economic Consequences of the Peace. Key­nes propounded a compelling thesis: economic ruination of Germany—the result of punitive reparations—would prevent the recovery of Europe as a whole. Germany was the motor of the European economic engine. In punishing Germany, the Allies were effectively prolonging their own wartime privations.

To sum up, then, as the French general Foch acutely predicted after the signing of the treaty, Ver­sailles would not bring peace, only an armistice for twenty years. It had solved none of Europe's funda­mental problems. In economic terms, it was (if one followed Keynes's reasoning) too hard on Germany, and consequently on Europe as a whole. The inter-war years thus saw Europe's economic position decline further relative to that of the United States, which emerged from the war as the net beneficiary, being owed huge sums by Britain and France, which Wilson insisted they repay. In its territorial arrange­ments, and the selective application of Wilsonian principles, the peace was also arguably too severe on Germany. (This was certainly the argument many Germans advanced, most vehemently under Hitler's regime.) Moreover, a growing number of non-Germans had some sympathy with the view that Versailles bequeathed Germany legitimate griev­ances: this in part explains the policy of appease­ment pursued by British governments in the 1930s. But, according to another line of reasoning (expounded by, amongst others, the historian A.J. P. Taylor), the real problem with Versailles was that it was not hard enough. The 'German problem' was unresolved, insofar as Germany still remained the largest unitary state in the heart of Europe. More­over, Germany's potential to wage war again had not been absolutely destroyed. However viewed— whether as too punitive or insufficiently so—the Treaty of Versailles was almost bound to fail, not least in the absence of any major power absolutely committed to upholding it.

F ig. 3. 1 Europe after the First World War Map reproduced from Keylor (1992: 93)