The Treaty of Versailles

The Versailles Peace Conference opened on 18 January 1919, with delegates from the 27 nations that were on the winning side in the First World War. A week later, the conference acopted a unanimous resolutinn to crate a League of Nations, which will protect members against agrression and devote itself to such matters as disarmament, labour legislation and world health.

On 28 June, the Treaty of Versailles was signed.
This obliged Germany to accept sole responsibility for causing the First World War. Germany was forced to return to France the territories conquered in 1870-71, Alsace an Lorraine, and to cede territory to Poland and Belgium. The loss of Alsace Lorraine, meant the loss of 72 percent of Germany´s iron ore reserves; this in turn meant that form this point on Germany´s industrial development became more and more concentrated in her largest colafiled, the Ruhr.

The humillation was completed by taking Germany´s colonies away from her to be administered by the Allies as mandates under the League of  Nations. This part of the Treaty was in reality just another round in the Scarmable for Africa. But even that was not the end of it. Germany was to pay for the war  in cash.

Huge sums in reparations were to be paid to the Allies to compensate for their financial losses in the war. This war fair, but turned out to be uneconomic and unmanageable – and also very dangerous politically. Event the United States coming into the war three-quarters fo the way through, had lost 22 billion dolars. Morally, Germany certainly should have compensated the Allies for their losses, but the German economy was in a mess, and with the politicas instability resulting from the war as well, it was impossible for Germany to pay reparations.

Following the Versailles Treaty came the Treaty of Saint-Germain, in September, which dealt with the splitting-up of the old  Austro-Hungarian Empire. This ancillary treaty obliged Austria to recognized the independence of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Yugoslavia. Austria was also obliged to pay heavy reparations and ceded territories to Italy.

By  1922, the Reparations Commissión was adopting a Belgian proposal that Germany should be allowed to pay in instalments. The French come to an agreement with Germany to allow Germany to pay in commodities such as coal instead of cash, but the German economy was in such a bad way that its stock market collapsed in August 1922. The mark fell in value from 162 to the dollar to 7,000 to the dollar, and then the following year it fell to 13 million to the dollar by September and to 4 trillion at the end on November. Germans switched to bartering in basic commodities.

The frustration that may Germans felt at the impossible burden of paying war reparations boiled over into an even more militant natinalism than before. It was frustration that Adolf Hitler was able to exploit to great effect.