Arguments For The Treaty Of Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles is one of the most controversial postwar resolutions ever drawn up. The leaders of the prevailing 4 nations, Woodrow Wilson, Georges Clemenceau, David Lloyd George, and Vittorio Orlando, were the authors of this controversial document. Each leader went into Versailles with their own idea of how the world should look after the great war. However, the European leaders widely agreed that Germany should be restricted, to some extent, militarily and sanctioned economically. France demanded the most from Germany, to ensure that Germany could not recreate a war machine ever again. Specifically, France wanted to annex Alsace-Lorraine and the Rhineland to create a buffer zone between Germany and mainland France. France demanded

He pursued the notion that the Treaty of Versailles was too weak to be a catalyst for war. He explained for all the paperwork that came out of World War I it ignored the issues that caused World War II. These issues were deep rooted in the very fabric of European governance, not the Treaty. Mazower claimed that the Treaty of Versailles was simply “ineffective” and was ill-advised. This was because it misunderstood the structure of European influence and wasn’t enforced because of American and British lack of interest. The author viewed the Treaty as more of a bluff full of unreachable goals and unpayable reparations. He called the Treaty overly ideological and was intent on keeping the old order in power, even though a new order was emerging. Mazower also cited that the main reason for WWII was the pivot from the “old world order” to the “new world order.” Mazower looked to more “obvious” reasons for the war like fragmentation of the entire continent. The author explains that this severely scared the country politically and economically during the Great Depression and “forced most of the entire continent into an impoverished self-sufficiency.” This gave rise to a Nazi regime, which preached self-sufficiency and