The Paris Peace Conference (WW1)
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Introduction:
The Paris Peace Conference was an international meeting convened in Versailles, just outside Paris in January 1919. The main objective of the conference was to create terms of peace after World War One ended. Although almost thirty countries took part in the convention, there were only four main representatives called the Big-Four, including Great Britain, France, the United States, and Italy. Since it was them, who subjugated the progress that led to the Treaty of Versailles Treaty Conceptualizations, leading to articulations of the middle ground reached the conference. The Treaty comprised the plan to mold the League of Nations, which was to perform the functions of security arrangements internationally and serve as an international forum. However, it is clear to anyone conversant with global diplomacy history would be surprised that representatives of the Big Four only advocated for its plan and goals that mostly conflicted with those of its fellows. The leading advocate of the League was the U.S President Woodrow Wilson, an authentic intellectual and social progress.
Although the Treaty of Versailles could get the credit for ending World War One, it became highly controversial and criticized. And when World War Two erupted nearly twenty years down the line, all the blames thrown to the Treaty majorly for sparking adverse political-economic and military impacts that gave rise to the global wrangles of 1935 to 1945. For instance, having imposed punitive conditions to helpless Germany by the Allied Powers and making it accept all the blames for the previous War mainly made World War Two inevitable. By imposing costly war reparations, the German economy as we, the autonomous Weimer republic, were knocked down. Therefore, the Treaty aided the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party. Besides, the withholding by the U.S Senate to approve the Treaty gave rise to the failure of the collective security organization as well as League of nations since the U.S was not part of the first global security organization.
Why this hope failed.
During World War One, Great Britain, France, and Italy participated in the War as allies. At the same time, the United States, however, got into the War as an associate power, which, although fought along with the three superpowers, was not in the position to honor the pre-existing agreements between these allied powers. The consents were meant to shift focus on the re-allocation of territories after the War, and President Woodrow Wilson was not of the idea the arrangements such as the Italians ultimatum on the Adriatic, which sometimes gave rise to a constant disagreement between the Big Four.
Other important Countries such as Russia were also absent, and it weakened the Negotiations of the Treaty. Russia, for instance, had earlier fought as one of the allies until the year 1917 in which its new Bolshevik government pulled back from the War. The Bolshevik’s representatives were therefore not invited to the Peace Conference since the Allied powers declined to recognize it. The allies got irritated by Bolshevik’s move to renounce the outstanding debt that Russia owed the Allies as well as the publication of confidential accord between the partners regarding the period after the War.
The Treaty of Versailles also Subjected Germany to strict measures, which were the Wishes of France and Britain. The new Government of Germany was pressurized to give up almost ten percent of its territories as well as what it possessed overseas. For instance, Danzig harbor city and the Coal-rich Sunderland were all subjected to the League of Nation’s administration, and France now controlled the economic resources of Saarland until 1935. Furthermore, the Army and Navy of the German government restrained in size. Most of the high-level German officials prosecuted as war offenders. Within Article 231 of this Treaty, Germany agreed to take responsibility for the War and to compensate the Allies financially. Germany grew to dislike strident conditions that the Treaty Imposed on them. For instance, the inter-Allied commission conditioned the exact amount to be $32 billion on top of the already $5 billion earlier stipulated by the Treaty.
When President Woodrow Wilson went back to the U.S in July 1919, where some of the U.S senates intensely opposed the Treaty, the opposition cited Article 10 of the Treaty, which encompasses collective security as well as the League of Nations. Opposition majorly emerged from two different groups; the first was the group that declined to join The League of Nations at all cost, known as the ”Irreconcilables”. The second group was the ”Reservationists”, a group that was willing to endorse the Treaty with alterations. The Chairman of the reservationists, Henry Lodge, was defeated in his attempt to pass the amendment to the Treaty.
What was wrong with the treaties and their implementation?
The Treaty of Versailles was never brave enough to Germany. Historian Such as Correlli Barnet has argued that the Treaty, as compared to the peace terms that Germany had expected to impose on the Allies, had it won the War, was extremely lenient. Barnet refers to the Treaty as hardly a ”slap on the wrist”, in comparison to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, a harsh treaty that Germany imposed on defeated Russia. He claims that the Historians parroting the Treaty as highly punitive and cruel to Germany is self-pitting nonsense. On the other hand, Marshal Foch contended that the Treaty was ”a twenty-year armistice”, which meant that the Treaty was not punitive enough. He complained that the Treaty failed to permanently weaken Germany’s armed forces as well as its strategic position., majorly through the French occupation of Rhineland.
Additionally, even though Germany lost thirteen percent of its territories as well as nearly all its colonies, Germany emerged from the War in a better strategic position as compared to when it first entered into the War. The colonies were, in a real sense, a drain on the German economy, and having taken them away was, in fact, a relief. The territories in Europe such as Alsace and Lorraine that Germany lost was not that crucial to the German industry which evaded the wartime destruction, unlike sectors in Belgium and Northern France. Germany had lost the eastern territory was able to create a buffer zone with the Soviet Union, whereas its other borders. The German political elites, democrats from Weimer as well as Nazi oppressors, twisted the Treaty of Versailles facts into propaganda and lied over what the Treaty emphasized to enhance their political agenda. The general public, therefore, believed these lies and myths hence compromising the success of the Treaty.
The Treaty also failed to rigorously enforce military restrictions imposed on Germany, such as the dissolution of its General Staff, limitation of the size of its fighting men to only 100,000 as well as the prohibition of armaments, among others. Germany started violating the restrictions as soon as they got imposed. The democratic Weimer Republic hid the German General Staff banned by the Treaty behind the troop office bureaucracy. The political leaders and the army of Weimer, who took part in the negotiations in Russia secret training facilities of the 1920s, led to the development of German tank tactics and equipment. The officials who collaborated with the German military leaders dodged the restrictions of the Versailles treaty, thereby secretly training combat pilots. In the Year 1932, just before Hitler rose to power, the Weimer government declared that Germany would no longer respect the Versailles treaty conditionings such as military restrictions.
Could the League of Nations have been made workable?
The League of Nations could have been made workable if only its pillars, such as collective security, conquest, and settlement of international disputes, were not formed based on the voluntary participation of its member states, basically relying on goodwill. Members most often preferred to personally handle their issues with other nations reverting to bilateral international relations.
The League of Nations provided that its members strictly respect territorial integrity and sovereignty of all other nation-states to suppress the use of military force as a measure of resolving international conflicts. Although the League of nations succeeded in resolving disputes between Iraq and Turkey over Mosul province in 1926 and resolving border disputes between Columbia and Peru in 1930, it ultimately failed to prevent the outbreak of World War Two. It lacked effective enforcement mechanisms and viewed as a weak, ineffective, and virtually powerless organization; hence many countries refused to join. The League of Nations could have been workable if only its shortcomings were projected and prevented beforehand.
The League of nations, therefore, had had integral shortcomings that later contributed to its downfall. For instance, the League of Nations was supposed to present the world and hold together all the countries, but several nations instead refused to Join the organization in which the U.S was the most prevalent one. It only took a short while for the members who remained in the organization to find an exit plan. Furthermore, the League of nations’ requirements for collective responsibility conflicted with the international relations of the member countries. The fact that the organization lacked its armed forces and entirely relied on its members to acted in times of need was a miscalculation since none of these member countries were ready to take the blame in providing military support and sparking another war as well.
Conclusion
The last myth regarding what ”everyone knows” about the Versailles treaty is that the U.S senate failed to endorse the Treaty hence projected the failure of the League of nations mainly because the United States was not a member of the global Security organization. This claim only means that the League of nations would have succeeded in preventing another war had the United States had joined as a member. However, the League of nations, with its oversight roles in settling international disputes, could have hardly prevented any country from doing whatever they wanted regardless of whether the U.S joined or not. It was not explainable how the U.S membership in the League of Nations could have overcome the fatal flaws in the organization.
Reference.
Robert Gerwarth. 21 January 2019. Paris Peace Treaties failed to create a secure, peaceful, and lasting world order. Retrieved 12 April 2020 from https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/paris-peace-treaties-failed-to-create-a-secure-peaceful-and-lasting-world-order-1.3745849