German criticism of the Treaty of Versailles

Here’s a follow up on the last essay on the Treaty of Versailles…

To what extent were the German criticisms of the Treaty of Versailles justified?

The German criticisms of the Treaty of Versailles are to a large extent justified, and to a small extent unjustified.

The War Guilt Clause is one of the major arguments by the Germans that can be justified. The clause had claimed that Germany and her associates were SOLELY responsible for the outbreak of war, and thus had to shoulder the responsibility of reparations. However, war is a collective responsibility of all belligerents, which leaves the Germans’ criticisms justifiable. Because of this, she had to shoulder all the responsibility and had to pay reparations. The paradox of this was that war has to be fought among two or more parties. There is no war if there is only one party involved. Therefore it can be said that war is a collective responsibility of all belligerents. So, the Germans’ criticisms on this clause can be largely justified.

Another German criticism that can be justified is the one on disarmament. The disarmament clause requires Germany to disarm, restricting her army to…. about 100,000 troops. It can be argued that for a huge country like Germany, an army of 100,000 troops is barely enough to keep law and order in the country. It can also be argued that the Germans’, though the losing country, still ahs the right to self-defense in the event of an invasion. There was also no all-round disarmament of all the countries. Only the losing countries were asked to disarm. I feel that Germany has a very strong case against this clause.

The last German criticism which I feel is largely justified is her lost of territories in Europe. It can be argued that losing its territories in Europe is the lost of its sovereignty, the people and productive land. The German colonies were also indirectly colonized through the mandate system. The system can also be questioned as to why is there no plebiscite for the Germans’ newly drawn frontiers or states. It can also be questioned as to why union bet between Austria and Germany is not allowed. It is largely a case of denial of self-determination to the people of the defeated country. The lost of territorial land to other countries also created problems for the Germans living there. When the territories were merged with the new ruling country, the Germans became the minority. Thus they were ignored most of the time. Thus, the Germans has a very strong point against this.

Although German criticisms are to a large extent justified, there are, to a small extent, certain German criticisms that are not justified.

It was argued by the Germans that the Treaty was a dictated peace and many provisions are not based on Wilson’s 14 points. This arguments can be counter argued as Germany themselves had applied the same treatment to Russia at the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918. Germany would also no doubt dictated peace if they had won the war. Its argument that many of the provisions were not based on Wilson’s 14 points can be rebuked as the Germans themselves had originally rejected Wilson’s 14 point. Therefore, she had to make unconditional surrender based on the terms laid by the Allies. Moreover, the 14 points were also never accepted as official by any of the states involved. Therefore, I feel that the Germans do not have much stand in its criticisms against these particular terms and thus, is unjustified.

Germany also argued that the reparation costs were beyond her economic capacity and thus renounced it as a “slave treaty”. The Germans’ criticisms can be counter argued by the fact that war damage and cost to the Allied forces were 2.5 times more than the Central Powers. Germany’s post-war crisis is due to extensive war debts or even due to deliberate engineering of German government (inflation) and not because of reparation costs. Germans’ economy potential also remained favorable even after war in comparison with the Allies as the war was waged mostly outside her soil. The Germans had also no grounds for complain as the Allies did make revisions and rendered other assistance to revive the German economic viability. Germany also received more loans than it paid out. Its economic recovery in 1929 also proved that the effect reparations were punitive. Therefore Germany did not justify its criticisms against the reparations.

Some essay comments to note:

• #5
• #3189

Please read/note the Terms of Use before using the essays.