Treaty Of Versailles Unfair

I believe that the treaty of Versailles is justifiably harsh on Germany due to pure amount of damage created by Germany during the war, especially in France. These actions virtually bankrupted France as a country and destroyed all of its industry and infrastructure. On the other hand it could be argued that the treaty was unfair as it took away Germany's main assets and humiliated the people through the lack of a strong military. The addition of an incredibly large fine of £6.6 billion may have seemed too large, however, due to the size and power of Germany's economy at the time, I feel that the treaty of Versailles was not too harsh on Germany.

Undoubtedly, The War guilt clause is a brilliant example of how the treaty of Versailles was unfair.

The military clause stated that the German army was limited to 100,000 volunteers and conscription was banned, along with the army being stripped of all its air force, tanks and submarines, and left Germany with only 6 battleships. An army of 100,000 men was just big enough to keep order within Germany, but was not large enough to defend itself from exterior attacks which left Germany incredible vulnerable, which would definitely not promote the “peaceful” aim of the treaty. Especially with the demilitarisation of Rhineland, Germany was left open to attack from France, who had an incredibly negative view on Germany, and wanted to punish her further. The fact that the German army was reduced to only 0.01% of the amount of troops that Germany mobilised during the first World War. This led to a huge number of soldiers loosing their jobs, and in the economic situation which Germany was in, not many Jobs were open. Before the war, the military was Germany's Pride and an important political source for nationalism. Having the majority of it being sanctioned, this completely angered the German people, and united them with the desire to seek revenge on the Triple Entente. In 1925, Hitler said in a speech, “With the common cry- We will have our weapons again!”- He was referring to when the treaty of Versailles virtually eliminated Germany's army. We can see that this was the opinion of the majority of the German public, as the Nazi party came to power with very similar ideas, and they were voted for democratically. To make matters even worse, treaty forced Germany to use its resources and industry to build warships for the League of Nations at their own expense, which humiliated them even further. The military terms of the treaty of Versailles were too harsh on Germany, and even to an untrained eye, it is obvious