“Peace is not made at the council table or
by treaties, but in the hearts of men.”
–Herbert Hoover
This cartoon shows the unprecedented vengeance
of the Versailles Treaty on Germany.
The Treaty of Versailles was the treaty that officially ended the World War I. The treaty was negotiated between January and June 1919 in Paris, and signed on June 28, 1919. From the very beginning some of the observers were seeing it as victors’ writing. Many under the euphoria of end to world war failed to see the future consequences of the document.
The treaty was ill thought. During the negotiations a split revealed between the French and the British and Americans. While France was adamant to dismember Germany to avoid any future war with Germany, Britain and America opposed the idea of dismemberment. The latter saw dismemberment as a pretext for a new war.
Germany did sign the treaty while protesting the harsh conditions Germany was put under the treaty. Never happy with the provisions of the treaty, Germany under Hitler eventually denounced the treaty altogether in 1935.
Many historians think the harsh provisions of this treaty were the leading reasons that led to the rise of Hitler in Germany and eventually sparked World War II.