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WWI Armistice - date requested? date implemented?
- October 1918: Germany requests armistice
- 11 November 1918: Armistice
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Big Three: Major Aims - George Clemenceau (France)
- France the main battleground for war; devastated while Germany was left relatively untouched; "weaken Germany" to ensure it never happened again
- Immense pressure from French public; "make Germany pay"
- Independent Rhineland state
- Guarantees of future security - demilitarisation of the Rhineland; severe restrictions on Germany military power
- France only covered 1/6 of war expenditure through taxation (Britian- 1/3); lost American backing and British assistance to France stopped in March 1919; France left to turn to German reparations
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Big Three: Major Aims - David Lloyd-George (Great Britain)
- Strong Germany to prevent the spread of Bloshevism
- German navy and colonial threat crushed during war; main war aim already achieved
- Germany as a strong trading partner
- Germany should bear war guilt
- British public anti-German; Lloyd-George promised to punish Germany in campaign
- Balance of power - prevent France from gaining too much power and attacking Germany
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Big Three: Major Aims - Woodrow Wilson (United States)
- 'Just' punishment
- Fourteen Points
- American public unwilling to be involved in Europe
- Wislon suffering declining popularity back home
- Wilson regarded himself as a benevolent neighbour sent from the New World to rescue the Old
- Wilson seen as naive and his ideals out-of-place
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Post WWI- four great empires shattered?
- Imperial Germany; Austria-Hungary; Turkey; Russia
- Replaced by a number of small new weak states
- Left Europe vulnerable to the spread of Communism
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Post (WWI) War Debt
- Britain/France in serious debt with the USA
- Hoped USA would cancel these debts, as they had done the majority of the fighting
- USA refused to cancel them
- Britain/France to turn to German reparations to cover debts
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Treaty of Versailles - Date? 4 main types of clauses?
- June 1919
- Article 231- 'War Guilt' Clause
- Financial Reparations
- Military Reparations
- Territorial Rpearations
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Treaty of Versailles: Article 231 - War Guilt
- Accused Germany of committing acts against 'international morality'
- Germany and allies sole blame for starting war
- Most unpopular and humiliating part of the treaty
- Needed as justification for harsh conditions of the treaty
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Treaty of Versailles: Financial Reparations (Ruhr? Danzig? Saarland?)
- Reparations - May 1921, set as €6.6 billion
- Profits from Ruhr to France
- Port of Danzig under League control
- Profits from Saarland under League control
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Treaty of Versailles: Military Reparations
- Battleships max 6
- Navy heavily hit during war; many scuttled
- No tanks, submarines, air force
- Rhineland occupation by Allied troops for 15 years, then demilitarised
- 100,000 army max.
- Anschluss with Austria forbidden
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Treaty of Versailles: Territorial Reparations (% land lost, territories lost)
- 13% of land lost
- Alsace-Lorraine to France
- Schleswig-Holstein to Denmark
- Upper Silesia to Poland
- Polish corridor to allow Poland access to sea: split Germany in two
- All German colonies under the League
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Treaty of Versalles: Consequences for Germany
- Germans outraged, expected a 'just peace' following Wilson's points
- "Only crime had been to lose the war" -- Overy
- Requested armistice; deserved lenient settlement
- "Stab in the back" myth born
- Diktat: dictated peace; Russia nor defeated powers invited to the peace conference
- Germany claimed it simply could not afford the reparations
- AJP Taylor, "punitive, but not crippling enough to prevent a backlash from Germany" (can be blamed for Hitler's rise)
- Surrounded by small states; many consisting of people who have never set up a stable government for themselves; containing large masses of Germans clamouring for reunion with their native land
- Issue of overturning Versailles would dominate German politics until WWII
- US/ Italy disassociating themselves with the Treaty
- France/Britain argued viciously over how to carry it out
- Settlement drawn up on the assumption that a democratic, republican Germany would cooperate in implementing; Weimar government too weak to secure German consent
- Britain/France: impose Versailles by force vs. more lenient terms
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Treaty of Versailles: Harsh Reparations (Justified?)
- Germany- superiority in economic resources of coal and steel
- Post WWI, industry remained largely intact
- Germany intact amongst several small new weak states
- New states - Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania
- Loss of 13% of German land less harsh than France had suffered at the Congress of Vienna 1814-1815
- Less harsh than Treaty of Brest Litovsk - Germans imposed upon Russians in March 1918
- "Brest Litovsk deprived Germany of any moral right to complain of Versailles" - Woods
- Bulk of her territory intact
- Regions confiscated were of mixed population; mostly fruits of conquest
- Spring-Summer 1919 - €5 million spent by Allies on free food/ necessities to Germany
- Germany in the end only paid 1/8 of total sum
- €6.6 billion misleading; A,B,C bonds. Allies only intending to collect A/B (50 milliard marks out of 132 milliard marks) - Marks
- Germany capable of paying the reparations but lacked the will to do so - 1923, chose hyperinflation over reparations
- Psychological impact of Versailes
- Received more loans from the USA (not returned) than they paid reparations
- €6.6 billion (132 milliard gold marks) - already a significant reduction from original suggestion
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Treaty of Versailles: (Non-Germany) consequences
- Italy felt it had not been properly rewarded
- Japan offended by Western states' refusal to include a clause on racial discrimination in the Covenant (League)
- Czechoslovakia the only fully functioning democracy in eastern Europe during the inter-war years
- Eastern Europe more unstable and divided post WWI than before
- Successor states weak, politically divided, in poor economic condition
- Settlement over Shandong gave Japan administrative control on the condition that it one day be returned to China - neither side satisfied (contribute to outbreak of war in 1937)
- To reward and appease wartime allies, self-determination not applied universally
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