The Treaty of Versailles and Its Effects

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The Treaty of Versailles and Its Effects

In 1914 the First World War was started. Sadly it cost millions of

lives. In 1918 the war ended leaving many countries in debt. The

Treaty of Versailles was meant to stop future wars. In the end it was

the cause of the Second World War. Looking back it is clear the treaty

caused more problems than it solved.

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Germany and Austria-Hungary, being the losers of the war, where not

allowed to go to Versailles at the conference to decide what should

happen in the treaty. Present at the meeting were “The Big Four” which

were Lloyd George, PM of Great Britain, Georges Clemenceau, PM of

France, Woodrow Wilson, President of the USA and Vittorio Orlando, PM

of Italy. They all had different ideas about what should happen and

this is what probably made it a disaster.

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Lloyd’s opinions about what should happen were not those of many of

the British. Most people wanted Germany to be punished: “Squeeze them

until the pips squeak!” and “Make Germany Pay!” were popular sayings

but Lloyd didn’t believe that. He believed that Germany should not be

treated too harshly otherwise it would only lead to future trouble and

they should be allowed to recover. France wanted to take the

possession of Rhineland (the area near the River Rhine). Lloyd didn’t

want for France to do this and only wished for the area to be

“demilitarised”.

On the other hand Georges held an opposing opinion. He was nicknamed

“The Tiger” because of the huge demands he made. He wanted to strip

G...

... middle of paper ...

...ised to rebuild Italy and

recreate the Roman Empire once again.

In the end, sadly, the countries present at Versailles decided to take

all the money they needed to replace the loss of the war from Germany

even though the economists had predicted that this would not be

practical. Germany was told to sign the piece terms or else. I feel it

was impossible for the Treaty of Versailles to make everyone happy at

the Peace Conference because people at the time had such different

ideas because all the ideas were so varied from each other there was

nothing that they could all settle on that would be the same as their

original thoughts in the first place.

Thankfully though at the end of the Second World War the treaty that

was signed then let Germany recover and make itself into the strong

industrial country it is today.

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