WWI

3 Pages 769 Words

The Historian John Lukacs has written that WWI and WWII are two halves of the same coin. Discuss.
The war that began in 1914 as a war to end all wars actually ended in 1945. World War Two was the child of World War One.
The word treaty is defined in Webster’s dictionary as “negotiation; agreement between two or more nations”. At Versailles in 1919 there were no negotiations other than between the “victors”. The German delegation was told of the terms of the agreement only a few weeks prior to the signing of the document. They were given the choice of either sign the document or prepare to be invaded by Allied forces. The “Surrender” of Versailles was signed June 28, 1919 in the same railroad car where the Germans had celebrated the victory over the French in the Franco-Prussian War.
The terms of the document signed at Versailles left Germany degraded, weak and embarrassed. They were unable to defend themselves as their once powerful army was all but destroyed. Much of their territory was annexed by neighboring states eager to take revenge for long past quarrels. And the huge burden of the War Guilt Class, which blamed Germany for the epidemic of war, made it a certainty that the German economy would eventually collapse. The new German government now had to take full responsibility for paying for the damages to the triumphant Allied countries. To complete the humiliation of Germany when the League of Nations was founded Germany was not allowed to become a member. This action effectively cut off Germany from the rest of Europe. The German people felt as if they were being treated quite unjustly for the decisions of the Kaiser’s government in 1914.
The terms of the Versailles document that France, Britain and the United States felt so reasonable, left the average German feeling very angry. Lloyd George of Britain, Clemenceau of France and Wilson of the United States each had very different ideas on how to...