How Did The Treaty Of Versailles Treaty Affect Germany

The Treaty of Versailles was signed in June 1919 by Hermann Müller and Johannes Bell after being written by the leaders of the Allied nations in the aftermath of the First World War. They needed a country on which to pin the blame for the war; a country which would need to accept its defeat by the Allied powers during the war and pay for reparations.

The terms of the treaty affected Germany in many ways. For example, article 231 of the Treaty stated that Germany would be made responsible for all loss and damage caused by the war. This, although not directly affecting Germany, had many more indirect effects on the country. This is because blaming Germany wholly for the damage caused by the war, as well as affecting the German morale, also paved the way for other terms, such as article 232 in which Germany was made to pay reparations and article 51, in which Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France.
One of the most important terms (article 232) was that Germany would have to pay an undecided sum for reparations (which was decided in 1921 to be £6.6 billion, or 132 billion gold marks).
Although Germany paid its first instalment of £50 million on time in 1921, in 1922, Germany did not pay. After failed negotiation attempts, in 1923, French and Belgium soldiers entered the Ruhr region and took the money owed to them in the form of raw materials and goods. This was known as the occupation of the Ruhr. Since this had such devastating effects on the German economy, the German government organised a strike; this would mean the workers were not producing anything for the French to take. However, the French gave a firm response, by killing over 100 workers and expelling over 100,000 from the region. However, the crucial impact of the strike is that the Germans had not produced anything for the French to
take.

All this had drastic effects on Germany; the government began to run out of money and attempted to solve this problem by simply printing extra money. This began a chain reaction which resulted in the new problem of hyperinflation. As the amount of money in circulation began to increase, its value would decrease, and this happened on a larger and larger scale, until money was so worthless that workers were forced to carry their wages home in wheelbarrows. The people most affected by the hyperinflation were, in fact, richer Germans or Germans with savings. Wealthy families found that their life’s savings which could have bought a house just two years before, were barely enough to buy a loaf of bread in 1923. This problem was, in fact, solved more easily than previously feared, by the new government under Gustav Stresemann. He called off the resistance in the Ruhr, destroyed the worthless marks, organised loans from America through the Dawes Plan and was even able to renegotiate the reparations payments.

Another crucial term of the treaty stated that Germany would lose 10 per cent of its land in Europe, all of its overseas territories, 12.5 per cent of its population and in the process, almost half of its iron and steel industry. This obviously had enormous effects on Germany; not only on its economy but also on the 12.5 per cent of the population who found themselves no longer German. Economically, both the Saar and Upper Silesia (lost due to this treaty) were extremely industrial areas and important to the country’s industry. The term caused the Germans to believe that the Allied powers were hypocrites: the Fourteen Points gave self-determination to countries such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, but at the same time this term, on eighth of the German population was being forced to live in new countries which would be ruled by non-Germans.

Another term of the treaty (articles 160, 181 & 198) stated that the German army would be reduced to 100,000 men, it could not have an airforce, and only a very small navy of six battleships and no submarines. This had severe effects on national pride, and caused Germans to hate the Allied nations further. In addition, the Germans held particular resentment towards the treaty, since Wilson’s Fourteen Points called for disarmament of all countries, despite the fact that none of the Allied countries were making any move towards disarmament themselves. This strengthened the Germans’ believe that they were hypocrites.

Articles 1-26 set up the League of Nations, which, notably would not include Germany. This was insulting to the Germans, but that was not the only problem the League would face, since, despite its good intentions, it would face many issues and as a result would not be able to prevent the impending war.