How was Germany punished by the Treaty of Versailles?

I commend this writer for assembling a sound body of basic information about the terms of the Treaty of Versailles with regard to Germany.


However, I do question the author's interpretation. First, as to why Germany alone was held responsible, the author notes that the Hapsburg Empire of Austro-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire had been broken up, but still suggests that they should have been punished. How? These two empires ceased to exist. There was no Hapsburg monarch to spend representatives to Paris to negotiate or sign a treaty, and no way to reinstall the imperial house without disenfranchising several million people whose rights to self-determination were critical to arriving at a settlement in Paris. The Ottoman situation was even more complex, with Greece invading Turkey to try to reclaim land it had not held since Alexander's day, France and Britain squabbling with Italy over their respective rights to Ottoman territory along the eastern Mediterranean coast, and trying to accommodate the promise of the Balfour Declaration, that a Jewish homeland would be carved out of the Middle East. There wasno way to reinstate an Ottoman ruler to accept responsibility.


The "war guilt" clause was actually quite inconsequential. It was unusual, yes, but it did not carry any direct consequences.


As for the other terms, were they that bad? Not really. Yes, the Germans complained about them -- losers do that (witness the aftermath of any American lawsuit). The reparations were not as severe as many Germans and German sympathizers make them out to be.


As for the colonies and territory, these are standard features of European war settlements, going back well over a century. When France and England fought their various eighteenth and nineteenth century wars, the result was almost invariably the exchange of colonies from the loser to the winner. Further, in the case of the Treaty of Versailles, the colonies were not merely handed over from one European administration to another; they became League of Nations mandates, looking to have eventual independence.


As to the restrictions on German arms, what is unreasonable about these, especially given the awful destruction that a large German army supported by tanks and military aircraft had inflicted on the world?


In short, I think most historians considering the great difficulty that the world powers confronted in trying to settle all of the disputes that they faced in the wake of the Great War would say that the terms of the Treaty of Versailles were not at all unreasonable.

Thank you very much for your comment.


Though I must say, when writing this essay, I was working with limited sources, their were restrictions, and we were only allowed to use one book.


And perhaps I was a little influenced by the teacher, who usually goes on about how the terms were unjust, and focused on the war guilt clause.


And overall of course, this essay is one of opinion, based on my point of view on the fairness, it is rather biased, but it was also required.


And I believe historians do think that the Treaty of Versailles was one of the triggers to World War II which lead to the rise of Hitler, so perhaps it wasn't very reasonable either.