The Paris Peace Treaties and Right of Self Determination When conflict ended in 1919 a series of peace treaties were signed between the ally and axis powers. Woodrow Wilson's 14 points signified a clear move to restore the pre war geographical state of Europe, with slight reforms concerning the Alsace Lorraine regions and the Ottoman Empire. However the most a controversial issue in nearly all of the treaties was the question of territory. Self determination was banned outright in most of the axis countries thus worsening the economic effects of the treaties, as for many countries annexation would have eased the economic strain of reparations and war debt. But to what extent were the treaties based upon self-determination, as a historian I aim to investigate and judge the level of restriction concerning self-determination in the Paris peace treaties. During the conflict all of Germanys colonies had been lost to the allied powers, it was decided that these colonies would not be returned, annexed or given immediate independence. Instead they were to become mandates of the allied powers under the League of Nations supervision in preparation for independence at a later date. However the mandated countries were treated as colonies of the allies and so the mandate did little to please Germany. Germany was distressed further when the industrial coalfields of Saar went to France for a 15-year probationary period ending in a plebiscite between France, Germany and League control. The decision to give France the Saar was mainly due to French insistence. The strength of Frances demands was so strong that it nearly ended the peace talks ... ... middle of paper ... ...cheque' they had signed in the treaty (the exact figure of reparations was not fixed until 1920.) When first looking at the Paris peace treaties it is clear to see the damaging effects of several clauses, including reparations, disarmament and clause 231. However when examining the treaties further I can see the devastating effects of territorial divisions, they effected and worsened the impact of the other main clauses. The lack of industrial areas meant reparations were relentlessly needed to cover the 6.6-billon figure and the ban on an Anscluss with Austria meant Germanys hopes for an annexation were dashed leaving them in a dire economic situation. If only the Paris peace treaties following the First World War had been based mainly upon the right of self-determination then later conflict could have been avoided.
The Versailles Peace Treaty of 1918 was the end result of the brutal First World War. Europe was devastated, and the Allied forces were faced with the task of coming to terms with their former German enemy. It is well known that the French were determined to punish Germany; they sought revenge and made little attempt to hide their objective. At the Versailles Peace Conference the struggle between the French and Germans began a new path. The French demanded large reparations payments and several other drastic measures that would keep Germany from ever being capable of attacking them again. The agreement that was reached enacted several harsh measures against Germany. Aside from the huge reparations that they would be forced to pay, the Allied nations forced the Germans to completely demilitarize their military. Germany was also str...
The stipulations of the Versailles Treaty were aimed to bring down Germany and make it as weak as possible. One of the solutions the the victors came up was to take territory away from Germany, resulting in the country losing more than forty percent of their coal producing areas. They took away the Polish Corridor, parts of East Prussia, parts of Denmark, as well as Lorraine-Alsace (Doc A). Taking away the Polish Corridor put Germany in a difficult position, as it geographically split Germany into two pieces. In addition, the city Danzig was also a very...
During the 1940’s in America, times were hard. It was a time of war. In this period of history, people found themselves looking for peace and innocence. John Knowles’s A Separate Peace illustrates a boarding school, one of the only places left to find peace, where the main characters, Gene and Phineas, face their own internal wars with each other. Starting out their friendship seems strong and everlasting but as the novel progresses, like all friendships, the fire between them seems to dwindle. Although they share the goal of excelling, Phineas and Gene clearly differ in athletics, academics, and personality.
President Woodrow Wilson had hopes for a New World. For Wilson, the war had been fought against autocracy. A peace settlement based on liberal-democratic ideals, he hoped, would get rid of the foundations of war. None of Wilson's hopes seemed better than the idea of self-determination -- the right of a people to have its own state, free of any foreign domination. In particular, this goal meant the return of Alsace and Lorraine to France which had been lost to Germany in the Franco-Prussian war, the creation of an independent Poland, the changing of the frontiers of Italy to include Austrian lands where Italians lived, and an opportunity for Slavs of the Austro- Hungarian Empire to form their own states.
...eaknesses to win their loyalty. Finally, the written agreement of Versailles was purported to represent the peaceful ending to warfare I, however, it became the prelude to a different war. it had been originally an attempt to revive order and supply a peaceful conclusion to warfare I. The sick feelings and economic upheaval that resulted provided the proper climate for Hitler's dominance, in post-war FRG. The contributor’s participants of Versailles had alternative motives behind the peace agreement apart from a peace settlement. Their stingy actions resulted in not solely the economic hardship of FRG, however inflation and state altogether of Europe. The severity of the reparations contained during this document set the stage for history to repeat itself. Therefore the terribly method within which the written agreement of Versailles was forced on the German people.
Germany’s military wasn’t the only thing to take a hit. Germany had many territorial losses as well. It had to return Alsace and Lorraine to the French and a few sections of Prussia to the new Polish state. It had to establish about 30 miles east to west as demilitarized zones. Germany was stripped of armaments and or fortifications so as to protect France from any moves from Germany in the future. Germany was immensely irate but nonetheless agreed to the treaty and its dictated peace.
The first step in identifying whether or not the peace settlement after World War I (WWI), would be the effectiveness of communication to the Germans. In order to properly communicate, one must simply tell the people involved what the conditions are and the consequences for not following them. In addition, the demands must be moderate and the opponent needs to be made clear that it will not favor them in the long run if they do not comply to the terms. While Germany was effectively given the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, one could argue that it was done in an unfair manner. Germany was not even present at the negotiations of the Treaty of Versailles and the Germans expected something along the lines of Wilson’s 14 point plan. At the end of the discussions,
With the armistice that took effect November 11,1918, the Great War had come to an end, four long years after it had begun. The German military machine had lost the war, and with it, hopes of German dominance in European affairs. Utterly defeated, the new German government (the Kaiser had abdicated at the end of the war) had no choice but to comply with the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles, despite the fact that Germany was allowed no say in the terms of the treaty. As a result of this treaty, Germany was stripped of all her colonial possessions as well as valuable continental territories, most importantly, Alsace-Lorraine, the Saar, and the Polish Corridor. Her armed forces were restricted to 100,000 men, and restricted from occupying the Rhineland. Furthermore, Germany was held responsible for the war and therefore had to pay reparations for all d...
The League of Nations sounds like a superhero team and in a sense, the goal that The League was trying to achieve could have been something straight out of a comic book. Originally proposed by President Woodrow Wilson during World War I, The League was born after some alterations. The League of Nations’ main intention was to bring an end to the war and prevent another one of the same atrocious proportions from happening in the future. Forty zealous countries joined this fight, but the most powerful country of all was not among them: The United States of America. While many Americans agreed with the goal of The League, many did not and those that did not were ones in power. The portion of the “mission statement” for The League that caused
...After we consider all these points mentioned we begin to see how everything worked and connected to form one huge disaster for Germany. We start to see how all these things played a part, the reparations led to unemployment that led to no money that led to overprinting of money. How the huge consequence of the reparations led to the unsuccessful paying of it leading to the French invasion of the Ruhr which led to strikes and therefore no products to trade with. How the unstable Weimar government led to extremist parties that damaged the economy further and brought inflation to its highest. The effects were probably the worst, the starvation coupled with the disease epidemic that killed people off and the worthless tonnes of paper notes roaming around the nation. It all in all was a very bad time in Germany one that they always found it hard to recover from.
most of the rules in the treaty were unfair and Germany lost a great amount of wealth. However,
is a refusal to be ruled, and authority of the state is the right to rule, there
After WWII, many politically influential people saw a need to create some form of interdependence between the nation states of Europe as a means to preventing further war (Watts, 2008: p6). In 1951 Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg all signed the Treaty of Paris creating the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC); the beginnings of an integrated Europe which has seen many changes since its creation (Thody, 1997: p1). Today it has become the highly integrated European Union with 28 member states, 18 of which share a single currency (Archick, 2014: p1). The process of EU integration is a complex one, as can be seen in its history and will surely be seen in its future. There is no simple explanation that can successfully explain the growth of the EU from a economic community of six nation states to the political and economic union it has become today. However there are two competing theories for explaining EU integration that give opposing views on the matter, neo-functionalism and intergovernmentalism. In this essay I will examine both theories and attempt to reach a conclusion if either successfully explains EU integration.
The unification of Germany threw all of Europe off its axis. With the formation of this new power there were now five major powers instead of four. This would work to unsettle age-old alliances and confuse the entire European continent for more than twenty years. Not least among the nations swept of their proverbial feet was France. France was a rival with the German alliance long before it merged into one state, but the new stability of a unified Germany made it a much more powerful entity. France scrambled to try and establish a sense of security, immediately demanding compensation in the form of the Rhine’s west bank and Belgium, which Bismarck quickly denied (Howard 40). It became quickly obvious that these two nations would be forced to a flashpoint and soon.
Many of you might have heard of international organizations on the news. However, have you ever heard of an international organization that deceased in about 20 year? The organization that you might have never heard of before taking World History is the League of Nations. The League of Nations is the first permanent international security organization, which was formed in the reaction of WWI and the Paris Peace Conference and was established under Part 1 of Treaty of Versailles on 10 January 1920. The headquarters of League of Nation was located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was chosen to be in Switzerland because during the WWI, Switzerland was the country where it stayed neutral and did not fight in the WWI. Other countries did not go against