Why the Treaty of Versailles Failed to Prevent World War II

The Treaty of Versailles isn't commonly known for being a roaring success. It's seen as a treaty which was either far too harsh or far too lenient on Germany and its government, or as being too hard to properly enforce or vague enough to be open to different interpretations. And whilst thoughts on the document are varied, the end result is pretty clear. It didn't work. The Germans never accepted that they were the guilty party for World War I. Germany's disarmament was short-lived and routinely violated. Its reparation payments were never made in full, and its territorial losses were the focus of fierce revanchism over the next two decades. As you'll be aware, 20 years after the treaty was signed, the

Second World War broke out, and the peace that the treaty was meant to secure was broken. This raises an obvious question. Why did the Treaty of Versailles fail so utterly in keeping the peace and stopping Germany from waging war again? So, going back to 1918 and the end of the First World War, Germany and the rest of the Central Powers at this point weren't doing so well. After the bright spot of knocking Russia out of the conflict, the Germans couldn't really take advantage of no longer fighting a two-front war, and weren't able to defeat the Entente in the West. And at this point, the German army was falling apart, and casualties were mounting. Germany itself was suffering economically and was becoming

politically fractured, and the Entente, now backed up by an ever-growing number of American soldiers arriving in Europe, were launching major offensives. To take a problem and make it a calamity, in late September, the Bulgarians, who were a vital geographic link between Germany and Austria-Hungary in the north and the Ottoman Empire in the south, surrendered before being occupied. It was at this point that most German leaders realized that the war was effectively lost, and less than 2 weeks later, they asked for an armistice and an end to the war. Now, you'd think that surrendering would be a simple matter, and would be a case of a defeated Germany just dealing with the consequences, but fun fact, no.

Apparently, there's an art to surrendering, and the Germans, it turns out, were very good at it. German High Command wanted to negotiate whilst it still had a functioning military in place. This was to, one, save the army's reputation by making it so that the war was ended by politicians who broke before the soldiers did. And two, by asking for an armistice while Germany could offer even limited amounts of resistance would strengthen its hand in its negotiations with the Entente. And said Entente, whilst obviously allies, weren't exactly a unified block. The four great powers all had very different ideas of what victory would look like, and to be blunt, they were mostly allies

of convenience and often didn't trust one another. The Americans thought that European imperialism was a source of global destabilization and were fiercely behind self-determination which put them at odds with the rest. The Italians wanted the lands that they had been promised for joining the Entente as well as acceptance as a global power with vested interests all over the world. A statement that London and Paris did not agree with alongside promises that they didn't necessarily want to keep. Whereas France wanted a very neutered Germany with a tiny military and an economy so degraded that if fighting a war would be impossible. Alongside the return of Alsace-Lorraine and a whole heap of

compensation too. The French also hoped for a series of independent Eastern European states to be born in the wake of the collapse of the empires there. With whom France planned to build a series of alliances with in order to keep Germany and the rest of the central powers down for good. And Britain simply wanted Germany's navy gone because it didn't like competition. What it did like though was money. And so one of its primary goals was to quickly re-establish trade links with Berlin which would require Germany to have a functioning economy. Oh, and it also wanted some of Germany's colonies because empire. Now the Germans were aware of these differences and knew that

they could be exploited, which is why its leaders approached the American government for a ceasefire. This was because they believed that a surrender based upon Wilson's 14 points would see much more lenient terms. And doing this also essentially nominated the United States as the primary power in the Entente, which would insult Britain and France thereby driving a wedge between the big four. As you'll know, Germany's position wasn't exactly tenable and despite the intent to leverage what little strength it had, the German army collapsed under the weight of Allied offensives, revolution broke out at home, the Kaiser was forced to abdicate and Germany soon became a republic. Its

new leaders were then quick to just agree to a ceasefire on whatever terms the allies and just so you know, it was at this point that the Entente started to fall out. The British and the French were ecstatic that the war would finally be coming to an end. Whereas the Italians wanted a bit more time to push as far as they could to get as much as possible from the now decaying corpus of Austria-Hungary. The Americans were glad that the war was over because they're expensive but they also knew that the longer that the war dragged on the more American troops there would have been in Europe which in turn would give them a greater say in negotiations. It wasn't long though until they agreed with the

other two to end the war. Meaning of course that it was now time to write the peace treaty. In spite of Germany's military collapse, the US still wanted the peace to be based upon Wilson's 14 points. Britain, France, and Italy kind of agreed so long as they weren't also bound by its terms, and also made sure to make a big deal out of creating the League of Nations in order to get concessions from the Americans for themselves. In the end, Germany was forced to give up all of this territory, it was ordered to pay reparations, the Entente would occupy the Rhineland, Germany was to accept guilt for the war and would be subject to strict military limitations. Germany's army would never

be allowed to number more than 100,000 men, it was banned from having an air force, and its navy was barred from including large capital ships. Now, you'd think that a treaty that made Germany smaller in territory, population, and resources, knee-capped its economy by forcing it to pay the victors who occupied its most economically valuable region, while severely hobbling its military, would have worked to keep the peace. But, as you will know, Germany would eventually regain some of its lost territory along with some new lands, its reparation payments went largely unenforced, and its military restrictions were soon done away with or ignored entirely. So, what happened? Well, it's important to note that a treaty's terms can only be

enforced as long as there's someone willing to enforce them. And in the immediate aftermath of the peace treaty, the Entente were more than willing to do so. Except for Italy, that is, whose leaders had stormed out of the Paris Peace Conference after it became clear that they weren't going to get what they were promised. After determining how much Germany would pay, and when German shortfalls in its reparation payments simply became non-payments in 1923, the Allies were met with the choice on what to do next. And it was at this point that the Versailles Peace Treaty largely started to unravel. One clause within the treaty allowed the great powers to change the terms of the peace if they

all agreed to do so. And during the early 1920s, public attitudes, especially in Britain and the United States, softened towards Germany, and many people there wanted their governments to adopt approach, one which traded political grandstanding, ultimatums, and military build-ups in favor of negotiated settlements, disarmament, and appeasement. The French did not share this sentiment. And when Germany announced that it couldn't pay, France, along with Belgium, occupied the Ruhr in 1923 to guarantee their money. Under pressure from the Americans and the British, the two agreed to change tack and negotiate. This swiftly led to Germany's payments being massively decreased under the Dawes Plan the next

year. And after this, the revisions to the Peace of Versailles truly began in earnest. In 1925, the Berlin government made some diplomatic concessions to the Entente. It agreed to respect its current borders with France and Belgium, and totally promised to never ever try to undo them. And that, if it and France ever had a disagreement again, they both promised to seek arbitration over going to war. And to cement this commitment, the Germans agreed to keep the Rhineland demilitarized after the Allied troops left. This agreement saw relations between Germany and the Big Four improve massively. In the decade following this, several things happened which meant that the Entente powers were less interested

in enforcing the terms of Versailles. The first was that Italy had been run by a certain the fez-wearing Italian man since the early 1920s. And he had ambitions for Italy, and believed that the international order born after Versailles was a roadblock to him achieving this. This meant that Italy supporting a future war could no longer be guaranteed, and when combined with America's growing isolationism, it meant that enforcement would largely be left to Britain and France. The second was that French political leadership adopted a largely anti-war attitude, and wanted military spending to focus on defending France, not being able to attack Germany. The French began building something called the Maginot Line, which

in their eyes meant that an aggressive war by Germany would now be impossible. And so, the previous restrictions on its military weren't as vital to France's survival. And the third reason was the Great Depression, which to be blunt did a number on most of the major powers. And so, for them, having a stagnant or shrinking economy meant that they had much greater problems. And all of this highlights the greatest weakness of the treaty. The only way to really enforce its terms was through military force. There was very little middle ground, and the options were essentially do nothing or invade and force compliance. And so, when Germany was suddenly under new management and said leadership was quick

to denounce Versailles and its terms, for the Allies who were now poorer, less united, and deeply afraid of the losses another war could bring, doing nothing looked a lot more appealing than launching a full-scale war. Especially because each time Germany made a demand, individually they were often seen as quite minor concessions, and definitely not enough to get both Britain and France to agree on launching another world war. Over time though, these concessions added up, and it wasn't long until Germany was larger, stronger, and at least on paper, richer. Meaning that standing up to it became much more demanding as time went on. And the less that they stood up to Germany whenever

it did something it wasn't supposed to, the more that the toothbrush mustache having Austrian man called the Western powers as weak, which led to him pushing for more again. And as you all know, this would lead to him issuing an ultimatum to Poland whom the allies had guaranteed, and when the Germans crossed the border, another major war in Europe began, and the peace laid down in Paris in 1919 was well and truly over. I hope you enjoyed this episode with a special thanks to my patrons, James Bizenet, Sky Chappell, Kartuitska, Marvin Cassaw, Wyen Hockey, Gustav Swan, Anthony Beckett, Captain Sidog, Roddy Martin, Ace Firefly, Robert C Perkins, Alex Schwinn, Andy McGinnie, The McWapper, Spencer Lightfoot, The Flying

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