Back At Germany And Other Central Powers example essay topic

"The weakness of peace treaties is that they tend to address the past war rather than the future peace". With reference to WWI, show how far you concur with this assertion? Germany was the last central power to fall in 1918, bringing an end to World War I and a beginning to the creation of peace treaties, which were intended to stop the fighting and ensure peace in the future. However, after some of these treaties were signed, most of the Central Powers were dissatisfied with their treatment and lack of consideration by the Allies who drafted the treaties. Because of this often voiced dissatisfaction with the treaties by the Central Powers, some of the treaties became regarded as weak and unfair. While it is arguable that the treaties did have their weaknesses, what the weaknesses were is also debatable.

One possible weakness is that the treaties were too concerned with getting back at the Central Powers to make provisions that ensured long term peace. "Getting back" usually involved weakening the nation significantly mainly just to teach her a lesson. It is claimed that this weakening of nations would in effect ensure peace, which is entirely false. Peace involves more than just not waging war, it involves ensuring war is highly unlikely. Most of the provisions in the treaties made based on WWI and other past wars were made to weaken nations, but not to keep the peace, since weakening nations would only make them bitter. Yes, they would be too weak to attack at first, but over time this could change and it could lead to significant conflicts.

Also, bitterness always carries a threat of war with it, therefore not making peace even possible. One form the Allies got back at the Central Powers that was based on past wars was literally getting back territory. Hints of revanchism and bitterness stemming from WWI and other wars existed in some of the treaties. These revanchist provisions (or ones that would spark it) were mostly not concerned with long term peace and more concerned with getting back at Germany and other Central Powers. At Versailles in 1919, revanchism was a theme of the conference. France's regaining of Alsace-Lorraine which they lost in 1871 following the Franco-Prussian war was purely revanchist move on the part of France, as peace could have been obtained even if Germany had kept the territory.

The problem with revanchism is that it is a never-ending cycle. One country takes territory from another; the other will want it back. If they do get it back, the other will want their taken territory back. It can be argued that the regaining of Alsace-Lorraine only made Germany more revanchist, and therefore promoted more bitterness between the two nations.

More territory was taken from Germany and given to countries ranging from Denmark to Belgium. While some historians like Margaret MacMillan argue that this was ultimately good for Germany as a country because the states taken from them were weak and were draining Germany of resources to maintain anyway. Also, they created a buffer zone around Germany. This buffer-zone, however, only would give Germany a better reason to go to war in the future, and At Versailles, German colonies in Africa were also taken from her. If the Allies had granted independence to all the colonies, it would have been a move to not only to promote worldwide peace, but also show that they were not only interested in dismantling and exacting revenge upon Germany. They instead distributed the colonies amongst themselves, although they claimed to be running the countries on behalf of the League of Nations.

This once again displayed a lack of interest among the Allies to make long-term peace and instead simply exact revenge upon Germany. The treaty of St. Germain (also in 1919), which dealt with Austria-Hungary, also included provisions that took territory from her. These provisions could be seen as a form of revenge as the amount of territory taken reduced Austria to a "rump state" therefore weakening her, but an argument can be made that the Allies actually ensured peace in Austria. The reason for this is how the Austria-Hungarian empire was divided; specifically how Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were formed from former Austrian territory. This ensured peace because before WWI they were regions that posed a major threat of rebellion because of their desire to be independent states. If Austria had kept the Czech and Slavic territory after the treaties, the threat of war would still loom.

Whether it was the Allies' intention to take the territories to keep peace or to take them for revenge is open to question, but given their earlier revanchist and revengeful nature seen at Versailles we can assume that they were simply dismantling the Austria Empire to keep her weak. Reparations were another issue which was labeled by the Central Powers (mainly Germany) as unfairly and poorly handled, for which they would have a case. At the end of World War I, Germany was an economic disaster. People had been starving in their cities due to the lack of supplies and food, yet less than a year after the end of the war Germany were still ordered to pay lb 6,600 million in reparations. It did not end at money either as Germany were also forced to give cattle to Belgium, coal to France, and the merchant navy to Britain. The severity of these reparations in times when it is obvious that Germany can not handle it (the money at least) is a sure sign that this is another way of getting back, not a way to ensure peace.

This is only made more clear by the fact that France had to pay reparations for the war she lost against Germany in 1871. The war guilt clause is another issue that seems another almost childish way of getting back at Germany. Forcing her by blockade to sign a clause in which she admits she and her Allies were responsible for the outbreak of war resulted in a huge loss of face for Germany and no doubt bitterness was once again a residue. The rather hostile way the Allies employed to force Germany to sign shows that it was against Germany's will, and that would definitely not promote peace in the future.

One provision that was included in all treaties signed with Central Powers after WWI was reduction of the military. This is one provision that is more driven by a desire for future peace rather than a hunger for revenge, as it actually is reasonable. The armies of Austria, Bulgaria, Turkey, Germany, and Hungary were all to be reduced; not completely purged, showing a concern for the nations's ecu rity and therefore maybe lessening some of the bitterness that might have arose from other provisions. The only problem with it is that the Allies would not reduce their military, giving them power over the smaller militaries and possibly creating a Europe which could be governed by certain nations simply because of the size of their military. This could be argued unavoidable, however, as it has been the situation in many places of the world in the past and present. Now having established that many of the important provisions of post-war treaties were based on previous wars rather than ensuring future peace, we can look at what specific events from previous wars the Allies based their reasoning on.

France was seen as the most aggressive nation at Versailles, and Premier Georges Clemenceau was nicknamed "the tiger" for his eagerness to punish Germany. This eagerness surfaced from two wars both mentioned earlier. World War I had been mostly fought on French soil, and most battles were between the Germans and the French. The damage done to the land and population was immense. Even with reparations it would take decades to completely recover.

Because France had good reason to blame Germany for all this, she very much wanted to do the same to the Germans. The Franco Prussian war, which was fought from 1870-1871 and won by the Germans (then Prussia), was another source of bitterness for the French. They were then on the receiving end of the forced peace treaties, so Versailles was their turn to do the same. Both wars had a heavy influence on the French's ability to make fair provisions that vouched for future peace and ultimately seemed to be a presiding factor when making the decisions. Britain was a little farther away from Germany and the only time Germany directly attacked her during WWI was from the water, so Britain's post-war bitterness towards Germany and the other Central Powers was slightly different than France's. The British had suffered huge losses in Western and Eastern Europe and had spent so much money they had gone bankrupt.

This cause domestic resentment towards all wartime enemies, specifically Germany, and propaganda spread. When the peace treaties were being handled, the British population demanded Kaiser Wilhelm's head. Since British PM Lloyd George could not ethically provide them this, he instead had to do his best to represent Britain's post-war resentment of Germany, which he indeed did. The United States's position on the Central Powers (specifically Germany, since the war guilt clause recognizes her as the representative of the Central Powers) is a little more complicated. When the end of the war was imminent, US President Woodrow Wilson sent his 14 Points to Germany as terms of surrender. They were relatively conciliatory provisions that resulted in Germany not losing as much land and not having to pay reparations.

Germany, however, thought they might still have a chance at winning the war with their Ludendorff Offensive in 1918 and rejected the 14 points. After the offensive failed and Germany surrendered, she expected to be offered the 14 points again as provisions. Wilson, however, was a bit bitter that they were initially turned down, so at Versailles he was rather passive about more severe punishment of Germany being added into the treaty. A lot of the parts he didn't include in the 14 points were based on war and would not promote peace in the future, so the US was also a factor in giving the treaties their weakness.

It was a major weakness that many provisions of post- WWI treaties were simply not designed for future peace, but it was not the biggest one. The fact that their provisions that were not designed to keep peace were not enforced was an even bigger flaw that eventually led to the outbreak of WWII. It is impossible to know if WWII could have been avoided if the weak decisions had been better enforced, but according to historian Ian Kershaw and others, the weak provisions could have kept some level of piece if they had been rigorously enforced. All the Allies played a part in writing the post-World War I treaties, and all had reasons to seek some sort of revenge based on events from WWI or other wars.

These reasons came into play and influenced them when they wrote the treaties and ended up with some unfair provisions that were only made to get back at the Central Powers. These provisions based on past war made peace in the future less likely, also making tension and bitterness likely future moods of Europe.