History Essay Sample: Between Versailles and World War Two

There were a number of events that preceded the Second World War and certainly contributed to it; the Treaty of Versailles happens to be one of the most significant of them. The Treaty of Versailles refers to an agreement signed in the year 1919 between Germany and the Allied Powers following the First World War that officially brought an end to that war. What was most notable in the Treaty of Versailles is that Germany was blamed a bit too much in relation to World War causes. This paper is going to give insights on what the treaty entailed and myriad other factors apart from the Treaty of Versailles that contributed to the Second World War.

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Respective of the Treaty of Versailles, there are a number of factors that made Germany feel uncomfortable and get the need to rebel. These include factors like guilty war clause, damages, territorial losses, and the military restrictions placed upon Germany.

The military restrictions placed upon Germany brought about a lot of unrest in the country. Almost the entirety of Germany feared for its safety after much of their armed forces were disbanded (Buzan & Lawson, 2015). Towards the end of the First World War and around the time the treaty was signed, the Russian government was overthrown. Russia had faced the brunt of having many casualties resultant of the First World War, and due to this, their government was taken out of power by a number of Bolshevists. After away all of their naval forces and their land army, Germany was concerned that their country would be faced with a political uprising. In fact, the fact that the Nazi managed to rise to power is because Germany had a weak military and government at the time.

Between the 1920s and 30s, the fact that Germany lost most of its colonies angered many citizens from within the country; besides, the war damages paid up by Germany brought harm to the German economy. Many Germans came to realize that losing their territories had led to the crash in the countrys economy and they later came to detest the Allies for bringing about the collapse of the financial system.

Historians agree that perhaps the most significant reason why the World War Two resulted is because of damages Germany had to pay for. The Allies demanded an amount of 33 billion dollars in damages. At first, Germany agreed to this agreement; later realizing that the damages owed by the country were damaging. Their economy was driven to the ground. At one instance the exchange rate between a single German mark and a US dollar was I trillion marks per every US dollar. The economic destruction brought the country to the ground, and that was not the mistake of the government, it was the mistake of the treaty. It is also worth mentioning that the hyperinflation caused by the Treaty of Versailles put the entire country in a state of lawlessness. There was a point when German marks were burned by women for fuel since they were cheaper in comparison to buying wood or coal (Cohrs, 2006).

The War Guilt Clause of the Treaty of Versailles was significant because it forced Germany to pay for damages. As above mentioned, the damages clause infuriated Germany the most. When the time came for another World War, many individuals of German descent remembered the humiliation that the Allies had brought upon them. This humiliation made it very easy for Adolf Hitler to convince the German people that there was a need for more war. By the time the First World War was coming to an end, there were antiwar rallies taking place in the country; all the same, in the course of the advent of The Second World War, many people in the country bared in mind the War Guilt Clause and made them tend towards the war and away from the rallies (Gatzke, 1972).

With respect to the events preceding the Second World War, it is quite evident that politicians and citizens from Germanys neighboring countries were resentful and wanted to teach Germany a lesson. For instance, Henry Kissinger, a German-born United States diplomat called the agreement a "brittle concession contract between American utopism and European suspiciontoo restrictive to accomplish the ideas of the previous, too cautious to assuage the fears of the second."

Neighboring countries like France had suffered a lot of casualties in the course of the war (approximately 1.24 million soldiers and 40,000 civilians dead). Most of the First World War had taken place on French soil, so the country desired to gain control of many of the factories established in Germany. In a similar way, the British public desired to punish Germany for its alleged sole responsibility for the happening of the war and had been assured such a treaty in the election of 1918; that Lloyd George managed to win. There was also a lot of pressure from the conservatives in the British parliament who wanted Germany to be punished so that they would never of beginning another war; looking to make Germany compensate for the loss of all the widows, orphans and many other people who lost their breadwinners.

References

Buzan, B., & Lawson, G. (2015). Twentieth century benchmark dates in international relations: the three world wars in historical perspective. Journal of International Security Studies, 1(1), 39-58.

Cohrs, P. O. (2006). The unfinished peace after World War I: America, Britain and the stabilisation of Europe, 1919-1932 (p. 1264). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gatzke, H. W. (Ed.). (1972). European diplomacy between two wars, 1919-1939. Quadrangle Books.