Let's go into a little more detail on
the Treaty of Versailles.
We've already talked about it helping
to establish the League of Nations,
but particularly with regards to Germany,
the biggest aspect of it was
its application of war guilt,
essentially putting the full blame
of the war on Germany.
Maybe you could justify it by saying
Germany was the most aggressive actor
at the beginning of the war
declaring war on Russia and France
without much provocation, but then
the counter-argument would be
Austria-Hungary had already declared war on Serbia.
Russia had already mobilized,
but then the counter-counter-argument,
well Germany gave a blank check to Austria,
said it would back up Austria
no matter what Austria had done.
Needless to say, this applied a lot of,
the Germans were not happy about
being assigned the full blame of war guilt.
On top of that, we've already talked about
the notion that it really diminished
the Treaty of Versailles,
really forced the German military
to be diminished dramatically down to
100,000 troops, which is really now
more of a glorified police force.
It was also forbidden from forming
a union with Austria.
You might say why Austria in particular?
Well, Austria is a German-speaking state.
You could imagine there's a lot of
ethnic affinity or linguistic affinity
between Germany and Austria,
so this is not allowed according to
the Treaty of Versailles.
On top of that, Germany loses its colonies.
These colonies we've already talked about.
These are colonies in Africa,
colonies in Asia and colonies in the Pacific.
On top of that, we have the reparations.
We have the reparations estimated at
the equivalent in 2013 terms of about
$450 billion US dollars.
That doesn't get fully paid, but it still
has a huge toll on the German economy,
especially because the reparations
were not just paid in currency,
they were paid in resources.
To make sure that they were paid in
resources, the allies actually occupied
the Saar region, the Saar region right over here
which was coal rich, and for the next
15 years, it would ship coal to France.
The allies weren't just getting paid in
currency, they were getting paid in dollars.
This would also have the effect as
Weimar Germany, the Weimar Republic,
this is the government of Germany after
World War I, called the Weimar Republic because
its constitution was drafted in the city of Weimar.
In order to try to pay the currency portions
of the reparations, left the printing presses
go free, tries to convert into other currencies,
and then you essentially have hyperinflation
in Germany through the early '20s,
through 1923.
On top of that, once this hyperinflation
happened and they no longer can pay
the reparations, then in order to continue
to extract resources from Weimar Germany,
France goes ahead and occupies
the Ruhr region, which is right about here.
It's also very rich in steel and coal,
and they began shipping the resources out
which was another huge humiliation for
the Germans and on top of that,
it's crippling the German economy.
They're taking all of the main resources
out of the German economy.
This happened in 1923 as well.
The combined effect of one, just the humiliation
of World War I, the shipping away of resources,
now this occupation of the Ruhr region
which was never even part of the already bad
Treaty of Versailles, from the German's point of view,
this helped bring support for fairly
more and more extreme parties in Germany.
As you go into the end of 1923,
it gave some energy for Hitler's, at the time
fairly small national socialist or their Nazis,
to attempt a coup d'etat of the government,
attempt their Beer Hall Putsch.
It ends up failing, but does give a lot of
energy to what was before a very
marginalized, or very small party,
because of this occupation, it allows that
party to grow by a significant amount.
On top of that, let's talk about the
actual territorial losses, all of the territorial losses.
You have this little region up here,
the north part of east Prussia,
at first becomes a French protector
according to the Treaty of Versailles,
but it's later taken over by Lithuania.
We've already talked about this whole region
of Germany, of the former German empire
that's carved away in order to give it
to the new state of Poland.
Most of Poland is carved out of the former
Russian empire, part is carved out of the
former German empire and also part is carved
out of the former Austro-Hungarian empire.
Then you have this region right here inside
[Lejon], part of it goes to Poland,
part of it goes to Czechoslovakia.
You have the famous Alsace Lorraine region
right over here, had been a cause of
contention between Germany and France
for many, many, many years.
Now this goes back to France.
You have a little piece right over here
that goes to Belgium,
and then you have the north [slushig]
region, goes to Denmark.
On top of that, as you can imagine,
the diminished troops,
the taking resources away,
France really wanted to cripple Germany's
ability to be able to invade
at any future point in time,
but on top of that, they also set up
a demilitarized zone in the Rhineland.
The Rhineland is included both ...
The demilitarized zone included the
west bank of the Rhine River,
all of Germany that was west
of the Rhine River, so this entire region
right over here, and then it was also occupied
by the allies.
Germany was also forbidden from
militarizing or mobilizing troops
anywhere 50 km east of the Rhine River.
East of the Rhine River as well.
So, you see going out of
Treaty of Versailles, every attempt
was made to attempt to cripple
Germany's war-making abilities.
They were forbidden from trading in arms
and they couldn't have a lot of
many types of offensive weapons.
It really was to try to prevent Germany
from being able to do what they did
in World War I.
As we see, in a large degree,
it really was maybe a catalyst
for giving energy to more extreme
elements in Germany and would be one
of the things pointing to for Germany's
involvement in World War II.