An Uncertain Peace: Enforcing the Treaty of Versailles - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

An Uncertain Peace: Enforcing the Treaty of Versailles

APEURO –

Unit

7D

Mrs.

KraySlide2

Allied victors found it was nearly impossible to put “Humpty Dumpty” back together

again

Revolutionary violence led to the toppling of 4 empires: Austria-Hungary, Germany, Ottoman Empire, RussiaWhat kind of government would replace these traditional diplomatic entities?Allied leaders prepared to confirm the creation of new states out of the former Habsburg Empire (Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, and the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia) and promote democratic governments thereBut revolutionary unrest continued

Revolutionary FalloutSlide3

The Paris Peace ConferenceSlide4

The Big Four: Differing Goals for & Visions of the PeaceSlide5

Idealistic vision for reconstructing Europe“making the world safe for democracy”

Hoped WWI would be the “

war to end all wars” and favored “peace without victoryOpen diplomacy – no secret treatiesFreedom of the seasArms reduction

National

self-determination

Collective security via the

League of Nations

Wilson’s Fourteen PointsSlide6

The Treaty of VersaillesSlide7

Germany lost 13% of its territory & 12% of its populationSaar industrial region placed under League of Nations

Surrendered its overseas colonies (mandates)

Territorial LossesSlide8

German army was reduced to 100,000 men

Naval fleet severely curtailed

U-boats bannedAir force eliminatedAt French insistence, Rhineland demilitarizedDemilitarizationSlide9

aka Article 231

Germany was forced to accept “full responsibility” for the war

Based on the war guilt clause, the Allies in 1921 ordered Germany to pay $33 billion in war reparationsWar-Guilt ClauseSlide10

League very weakU.S. never joined; USSR & Germany excluded

League of Nations EstablishedSlide11

A New EuropeSlide12

Few were satisfied with the Treaty of Versailles

“Take Your Medicine”Slide13

Treaty of Versailles turned Germans against new Weimar Republic

Many condemned the economic arrangements of the treaty

John Maynard Keynes who attended the negotiations for Britain predicted the ruination of the world economyInability of the victors to establish a consistent diplomatic approach torpedoed their efforts at establishing a stable balance of powerConsequences and ConflictSlide14

Enforcing the TreatySlide15

France wanted vigorous enforcement

This proved difficult

But Britain and U.S. in isolationist moodBolshevik Revolution had eliminated Russia as effective counterweight to GermanyFrance’s Little Ententealliance with Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania for securityIneffectiveThe League of Nations had no enforcement mechanismsGermany, USSR, and USA not in League

Problems with EnforcementSlide16

General, but short-lived trend toward democracy after WWI

Women earned to right to vote

Labor unions gained powerSocial legislation passed to benefit citizensThe Advance of DemocracySlide17

Many experienced democracy for the first time

Yugoslavia, Austria, Hungary, Poland, and Baltic states

New states formed around the notion of national self-determinationBut each confronted an ethnic minority problemEx. Millions of ethnic Hungarians in Romanian Transylvania

Ex.

Millions of ethnic Germans lived in Czechoslovakia and Poland

Democracy in Eastern EuropeSlide18

Conservative interests opposed the new democracies

Extreme socialists worked to overthrow

them from the leftSpecter of Bolshevism hung over Eastern Europe1919  Bela Kun attempted to establish a Soviet regime in Hungary

Problem of

underdevelopment

Even the great social change in the region –

land reform

– failed to solve this problem

New democracies lacked the integrated economies they had experienced as part of former empires

Development of the middle class

– the traditional basis of parliamentary democracy – lagged far behind western EuropeProblems with Democracy in Eastern EuropeSlide19

Germany’s Failed Experiment: The Weimar RepublicSlide20

Founded by the Social Democratic Party

(left-center) and the

Catholic Center Party (right-center)The Reichstag’s Proportional Representationex. Party received 10% of the vote, it got 10% of the seatsAllowed for a diversity of views Made it difficult to establish a stable majorityEasier for extreme views to gain political voice

Suicide clause

(Article 48)

In times of “imminent danger,” the president of the republic could suspend parliamentary rule and rule by decree

Structure of the Weimar RepublicSlide21

Many influential Germans, particularly military officials, judges, and civil servants

opposed the new government

as a weak substitute for imperial ruleExtremist groups on the right and left attempted to overthrow it1919 – Spartacist UprisingCommunist movement led by Rosa Luxembourg and Karl LiebknechtAttempted to overthrow Berlin’s city governmentCaptured and executed by

Freikorps

, a right-wing paramilitary group

1920 –

Kapp

putsch

Freikorps attempted a coup

d’etat against Weimar government

Only the intervention of the working class saved the republicWeimar Faces Attacks from the Right and the LeftSlide22

Spartacist Uprising, 1919

Rosa Luxembourg was executed at the end of the uprising

Provisional government troops firing on the

SpartacistsSlide23

The FriekorpsSlide24

Associated with the Versailles settlementVery damaging for the Republic since most Germans viewed the treaty as a

Diktat

(dictated peace)“Stabbed in the Back Theory”Myth German army was on the verge of victory in 1918 and they were stabbed in the back by “Jews, socialists, and democrats” bent on establishing republican government at any price.”Allowed right-wing groups to scapegoat the Weimar Republic for Germany’s problems

Weimar Gets the BlameSlide25

“The Stabbed in the Back Theory”Slide26

Reparations and the Ruhr Crisis

1923 – Weimar Republic fell behind on its reparations payments

French and Belgians invade the Ruhr Valley to extract the payments in the form of coal and steel

Weimar leaders encouraged workers to engage in a campaign of passive resistance

Urged workers to refuse to operate the factories & mines

Weimar agreed to pay the workers’ benefits and wagesSlide27

By Nov. 1923, the German mark had plummeted to catastrophic levels$1 = 4 trillion marks

Over night, middle-class savings, pensions, insurance policies, an interest income all became worthless

Confidence in Weimar Republic plungedHyperinflation Strikes WeimarSlide28

Adolph Hitler and his Nazi Party, emboldened by the economic chaos caused by hyperinflation, attempted to overthrow the Bavarian government

Coup failed, Hitler received a 5-year prison sentence

Beer Hall Putsch, 1923Slide29

Outlined his racial ideas and goals for Germany

Mein

Kampf, 1924Slide30

Britain and the U.S. criticized France for its provocative gestureDawes Plan

U.S. extended loans to Germany and rescheduled the reparations payments in exchange for French withdrawal from the Ruhr Valley

France learned an important lessonVigorous action brought down the Poincare government and earned it the criticism of allies fearful of another warThe U.S. to the Rescue: The Dawes Plan, 1924Slide31

A Closer Look at the Dawes PlanSlide32

1924-1929: produced optimistic hopes of peace and prosperity

Moderate leaders emerged in the principal nations who were dedicated to solving disputes through negotiation and diplomacy

Aristide Briand in FranceGustav Streseman in GermanyA Change in LeadershipSlide33

Engineered by Briand & Streseman

Considered by contemporaries to be the

true end of WWIGermany recognized its western borders as permanentaccepted loss of Alsace-Lorraine Agreed to revise its eastern borders with Poland and Czechoslovakia only by common agreementGermany allowed to enter the League of Nations

Created the “

spirit of Locarno

”

The Locarno Pact, 1925Slide34

65 signatory nations condemned war as an instrument of international politics

The Kellogg-Briand Pact, 1928