Versailles who did not bring peace
Why peace treaties following the First World War did not save the world from the Second World War
28 June 1919 of the Year in the Mirror Hall of the Palace of Versailles near Paris, in a solemn atmosphere, a long-awaited peace treaty was signed between defeated Germany and its victors - the Entente countries. Soon, similar agreements were concluded with the former allies of Germany - Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey. The “Versailles World” fundamentally redrew the map of Europe, Asia and Africa: in the place of the former empires - Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and partly Russian, many new countries appeared with borders resembling modern ones. The defeated Germany was also “circumcised” by the victors from all sides, it lost its overseas colonies, and strong restrictions were imposed on the size of its army. All this was perceived by many Germans as a terrible national humiliation. At the same time, Germany, unlike 1945 of the year, was not fully occupied by the winners, dismembered into parts. Its economic and scientific potential was not taken under the control of the Entente and therefore easily recovered. Many believe that it was the explosive combination of injustice and softness of the Treaty of Versailles that led to the next world war in just 20 years. Others say that the world war was a single process with a not so long truce: its meaning was the struggle of the Germans for world domination, which they lost.
The contract in the Hall of Mirrors
The Big International Peace Conference, which tens of millions of people dreamed of all the years of the war, began its work in Paris two months after the Armistice of Compiegne - January 18, 1919, and lasted a whole year. It was attended by 27 countries that fought with Germany from Great Britain, France and the United States to Haiti and Hejaz, as well as five British dominions (Canada and then not yet part of its Newfoundland, Australia, New Zealand and the Union of South Africa).
From Russia, which concluded peace with the Germans in Brest-Litovsk in March 1918, no one was invited to the conference: neither the Soviet representatives, nor the delegates from the then-controlling vast territories of the “White Guard” governments. The leaders of the main countries of the Entente considered Russia to be a “traitor of the interests of the allies,” who had promised not to conclude a separate peace at the beginning of the war. The representatives of Germany were not invited to the conference either: they were actually dictated by the conditions of peace elaborated by the conference, which in itself was humiliating. After all, leaving the war, Germany did not capitulate, but only concluded a truce. Moreover, in such conditions, when its troops still continued to occupy half of Belgium, half of Romania, parts of France, Finland, the Baltic states, Ukraine and Belarus, Georgia, the Russian cities of Pskov and Rostov-on-Don.
As a result, the new system of international relations at its very inception did not include until recently the two leading countries of the continent, Russia and Germany, which together accounted for more than half of the European population and the largest military potential, unlike the Vienna Congress 1814 -15's, where France acted as one of the equal parties.
The main tone was set by the leaders of the United States (President Woodrow Wilson), Great Britain (Prime Minister David Lloyd George) and France (Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau). Between them, as the main winners in the war, the fundamental contradictions were immediately outlined. France, as the one most affected by Germany and having a direct border with it, wanted its maximum easing (Clemenceau even dreamed not only of returning her “legal” territories - Alsace and Lorraine) to France, but also of joining the entire left bank of the Rhine to France. Great Britain Germany, in particular, didn’t want too much of a serious weakening, as this would dramatically strengthen France and make it the strongest country in Europe. As a result, they managed to “push” their position: only Lorraine and The small compromise was that the small Saarland region located north of Alsace passed 15 years under international management (the League of Nations) under the French-British occupation and French control of the local mines. In addition, the 50-kilometer strip of land along the Rhine was declared demilitarized zone occupied by the troops of the Entente for 15 years.
In addition to preparing full-fledged peace treaties with Germany and its allies, the task of the Paris Conference was to develop attitudes towards new states that arose during the war on the ruins of collapsed empires (from Finland and Czechoslovakia to Ukraine and Georgia). These were questions of their international recognition, and the definition of borders and agreements, primarily with each other, in order to avoid new wars over numerous disputed territories. Also to prevent new wars on a global scale, it was supposed to create an authoritative international organization (the League of Nations, the prototype of the current UN, which, alas, later failed to cope with its stated task).
By the conclusion of a peace treaty, the conference participants came out only in June. It was named the “Versailles Peace”: it was signed with Germany by the United States, Great Britain and its dominions, France, Italy, Japan, Belgium, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (since Yugoslavia - Yugoslavia-RP), Romania, Portugal, Greece, Czechoslovakia , Poland, Hejaz (western part of present-day Saudi Arabia, independent until 1929 year - RP), Siam (now Thailand - RP), Brazil, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Uruguay and Liberia . China signed the “Versailles Peace” with Germany, initially refused because of disputes over the fate of the former German concessions in the country and later concluded a separate peace treaty brokered by the United States.
Annexation and contribution
In full accordance with the saying “Woe to the vanquished,” three articles of the Treaty of Versailles placed all responsibility for the war on Germany and its allies, who were to bear full responsibility for the victims and destruction, to pay for the damage to the Entente countries with “annexations and indemnities”. Separate articles of the war criminal were declared by the cursory German emperor Wilhelm II (the Netherlands did not extradite him to international court and he escaped responsibility), a number of other high-ranking German officials.
A number of territories were rejected from Germany, with the largest territorial "gain" received by the revived Poland: 43 600 sq. Km with a population of about 3 million. It was a district of the city of Poznan, separate areas rich in coal Silesia, as well as access to the Baltic Sea to the west of the city of Danzig (now Gdańsk). The 325 thousandth city of Danzig itself was declared a “free city” under the protection of the League of Nations, but with the extended rights of Poland, which until the year 1939 actively used Danzig as its own port. Such a change in borders created a potentially dangerous situation: East Prussia, with its center Koenigsberg, turned into an enclave, also cut off from the mainland of Germany, like modern Kaliningrad cut off from the mainland of Russia. It is precisely the controversy surrounding the “corridor” to East Prussia that in 1939 will be the main reason for the German attack on Poland, which started World War II.
Another large territory (14 520 sq. Km with a population of 1,8 million) was rejected from Germany by France - the aforementioned Alsace and part of Lorraine, which until the year were French for 1871. The area of 3900 square kilometers with a population of 160 thousand people (in the north of Germany, the northern part of Schleswig-Holstein) acquired neutral Denmark, the city of Memel (Klaipeda) with a population of 140 thousand people - Lithuania. Small border areas were also transferred to Belgium (Eupen-Malmedy and Moresnet) and Czechoslovakia (Glyuchinsko district).
Germany lost all of its overseas colonies, which were taken to the Entente countries in the form of mandated territories of the League of Nations. Almost all German East Africa (Tanganyika, now a large part of Tanzania) moved to Great Britain. The western parts of this colony (now Rwanda and Burundi) passed to Belgium, a small border region in the south (the “Kionga triangle”) to Portugal, becoming part of its colony Portuguese East Africa (now Mozambique).
The German colonies of Togo and Cameroon were divided between Great Britain and France, German South-West Africa (now Namibia) passed under the mandate of the British dominion of the Union of South Africa.
In the Pacific Basin, German New Guinea and Nauru passed under the mandate of the British dominion of Australia, Western Samoa-New Zealand, German ownership in China, Qingdao, was transferred to Japan, which caused China’s initial refusal to sign the “Versailles Peace”. This city became Chinese only in 1922 year after the decisions of the peace conference in Washington. But already in the Versailles Treaty, Germany had agreed on the refusal of all concessions and privileges in China, as well as Siam.
Germany was ordered to reduce its army to 100 thousand people, recruited under the contract (including only 4 thousand officers), the general headquarters of the German army was dissolved. All fortifications on the western borders of Germany were also destroyed, the country was forbidden to have military airships, Tanks, military and naval Aviation. Severe restrictions were imposed on the construction of new warships.
The German fleet was to be reduced to 6 armadillos, 6 light cruisers, 12 counter-carriers and 12 destroyers with a total number of naval sailors of no more than 15 thousand people. It was forbidden to have an underwater fleet at all. All other German warships were to be transferred to the Allies or disposed of (a week before the signing of the Versailles Peace Treaty, most of the German Fleet The open sea, interned at the Scapa Flow British base, was flooded by German sailors themselves, who did not want their ships to go to the British. In clashes with the British, trying to prevent flooding, nine German sailors died. They are called "the last victims of the First World War - RP).
The amount of reparations - “contributions” to the Entente countries initially amounted to an incredible amount of 269 billion gold marks, which was equivalent to the then cost of 100 thousand tons of gold (later it was reduced by half). Ruined by the war and weakened by the subsequent global crisis, the country was unable to pay this money, so part of the contribution was recovered in kind: German foreign assets of 7 billion were arrested and sequestered, many German patents were reissued to the UK, France and other countries. During 10 years, Germany pledged to supply France with up to 14 million tons of coal, Belgium - 80 million tons, Italy - 77 million tons. Germany also handed over to the Allied powers half the entire supply of world-famous aniline dyes and other valuable chemical products.
For the payment of the monetary part of the reparation, Germany transferred to France “Russian gold” (received from the Bolsheviks under the terms of the Brest Peace), but was then forced to resort to international loans. This led to hyperinflation, widespread unemployment, poverty - all that the Nazis came to power in Germany in just 13 years. The last reparation payment to the countries of the former Entente on "Versailles" obligations Germany made only ... in 2010.
Conciliation with Soviet Russia
Although the Russian representatives did not attend the Paris Peace Conference, the Versailles Peace Treaty also stipulated the further fate of Germany’s relations with Soviet Russia and other states that had arisen in the territory of the former Russian Empire. A separate article of the treaty proclaimed the abolition of a separate treaty between the Germans and the Bolsheviks in Brest-Litovsk and other agreements with them. Of course, Russia, as a country that had signed a separate peace and was torn apart by a civil war, could no longer count on territorial acquisitions (the Black Sea straits zone, the western part of Armenia and the eastern part of Galicia). But Russia could put Germany in its claims for reparations for the damage. Also, Germany was required to recognize the independence of all new states, not only already arisen in the expanses of the former Russian Empire, but also which are “just being formed”. The interpretation that is so vague for an important international document can be explained only by one thing: in 1919, no one yet knew exactly who would win the Civil War in Russia, how its new political map would be drawn.
Understandably, the Soviet government was extremely dissatisfied with such postulates of the Versailles Treaty, as they were not satisfied in Germany. This again brought together the positions of two countries that fought among themselves: in April 1922 of the year in the Italian city of Rappalo, Soviet Russia and “Weimar” Germany signed an agreement on the restoration of diplomatic relations in full, on the mutual refusal of indemnities. It was also beneficial for Germany, of which Russia, even in accordance with the "Versailles" conditions of peace, could issue a large "bill" at least for the destruction of the territories occupied during the war, and for the Bolsheviks who had broken through international isolation.
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger noted that the signing of the Treaty of Rapall was inevitable and the Western allies themselves predetermined this event, "ostracizing the two largest European powers by creating a belt of small, hostile states, through the dismemberment of both Germany and Soviet Russia." The well-known German historian Hagen Schulze called the Rappalla Treaty "the only bright spot" in a series of defeats and humiliations associated with German foreign policy in the first period of the Weimar Republic.
Thanks to the Rappal Treaty, the Red Army gained access to the development of the German military-industrial complex (primarily in the field of aviation) and to German theories of military construction, and Germany could train its military (also primarily pilots and tankmen) in the Soviet military schools bypassing Versailles contract. In the future, this contributed both to the strengthening of Soviet military power and the rapid restoration of the German "war machine".
Bulgarian national disaster
The peace treaty of the Entente countries with Bulgaria, which also fought on the German side, was signed on November 27, 1919, in the eastern suburb of Paris, Neuilly-sur-Seine, and received the name of the Treaty of Neiys. His conditions were extremely harsh for a small and not rich country: Bulgaria needed to forget about its claims to Macedonia and Dobrudja (the territory between the Danube and the Black Sea), a tenth of the “pre-war” territory was rejected from 14% of the population. Part of the border areas with Serbia got to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Romania once again stipulated its claims on Dobrudja. But the most painful was the loss of a large territory in Thrace, on the coast of the Aegean Sea, obtained by the Bulgarians at the cost of great blood during the Balkan Wars: it passed into Greece, and Bulgaria lost access to the Mediterranean basin. It is no coincidence that the outcome of the First World War in Bulgaria itself is called the “second national catastrophe”. Its consequences were somewhat reduced only in 1940, when Bulgaria peacefully managed to get part of southern Dobrudja from Romania (the present Silistra and Dobrich regions of Bulgaria), north of the current popular resorts Golden Sands and Albena.
In addition to territorial losses, a ruinous indemnity in 2 ¼ billion francs in gold was imposed on the country (at the then cost ¼ of the total national wealth), which was supposed to be paid before the year 1957. Reparation payments ravaged the national economy of Bulgaria, led to its long lag behind other European countries, which has not been overcome to this day. The consequences are well noticeable even to the sight of a tourist on the streets of Bulgarian cities: there are very few buildings built in the interwar period - there simply wasn’t enough money to build them.
The number of Bulgarian armed forces was also limited to just 33 thousands of people recruited under the contract (20 000 - army, 10 000 - gendarmerie and 3 000 - border guards). Bulgaria was forbidden to have aircraft and any type of heavy weaponry, the navy was reduced to 10 small ships.
The Gorky Neuisk Treaty led to the fact that from the middle of the 30-s in Bulgaria the revanchist sentiments prevailed, the rearmament of the army and preparation for the war with Yugoslavia and Greece began. When Hitler "laid eyes" on these countries in 1941, Bulgaria also took part in the war with them in another attempt to annex Macedonia and get access to the Aegean Sea. True, then the ruling circles of Bulgaria had enough sense not to participate in the war against the USSR. After the defeat of fascist Germany and its satellites with short-term territorial acquisitions in Macedonia and in the north of Greece, Bulgaria once again had to part with the access to the Mediterranean basin, this time forever.
Austria and Hungary instead of Austria-Hungary
10 September 1919 was signed in the Paris suburb of Saint-Germain-en-Laye by the Saint-Germain peace treaty between the Entente countries and the short-term public entity, German Austria, the successor of the disbanded Austria-Hungary. She claimed in addition to the current territory of Austria and a number of neighboring lands in the Czech Republic (Sudetenland), the Italian Alps, where either the German-speaking population prevailed or its share was significant. But according to the terms of the contract, these claims were ordered to Austria to forget: it was also “trimmed down” as much as possible and recognized as winners only in its current borders. The name “German Austria” itself was also required to be changed to simply “Austria”, any attempts to unite the new German-speaking country with Germany were prohibited, and as a political system, Austria was demanded to become a democratic republic.
Austria, under the Treaty of Saint-Germain, recognized the separation of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, lands inhabited by southern Slavs and Ukrainians, territorial concessions to Italy (Trentino in the Alps, Istria, a number of cities in Dalmatia on the Adriatic Sea), concessions to Poland Krakow and other areas in the south the present Poland, the cession of Romania to Bukovina. The loss, in fact, of everything that, before 1918, was part of its part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Austria, deprived of access to the sea, also refused from the entire fleet in the Adriatic, both military and commercial, but also had to hand over to the Entente countries and its river Danube military flotilla. The size of the Austrian army was limited to 30 by thousands of "contract soldiers", it should not have tanks, airplanes and chemical weapons. The countries of the Entente received the right of unimpeded transit of their goods through the territory of Austria.
But the pacification of the allies with the former Austria-Hungary was not limited to the agreement with Austria alone, since Hungary also entered the collapsed empire. A peace treaty with her was signed only on 4 on June 1920 of the Year in the Grand Palace of Versailles in Trianon and received the name of the Trianon Peace Treaty. As in the case of Austria, it recorded the maximum “curtailment” of the Hungarian territory. Hungary lost to 2 / 3 the lands of the former Hungarian kingdom (Transleitania): Slovakia and the Transcarpathian Ukraine, which went to Czechoslovakia, Transylvania and Banat, transferred to Romania, their part of the lands of the South Slavs, which retreated to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
Like Austria, Hungary was transformed into a small Eastern European state that was poor in resources: for example, 88% of forests, 83% of ferrous metallurgy production, and even 67% of banking capital were concentrated in areas that had been separated from it. Also, as in the case of Austria, which left within the borders of Czechoslovakia, Romania and Italy millions of former German-speaking subjects of the empire, in the territories of Romania, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Czechoslovakia turned out to be three million ethnic Hungarians. The size of the Hungarian army was also limited to 35 by thousands of “contract soldiers.”
Of course, the treaties with the countries of the Entente in Austria and Hungary were also perceived as demeaning, which, after less than two decades, brought both countries back to the pro-German camp. Austria, in spite of all the prohibitions of the Entente, was subjected to the Anschluss (annexation to fascist Germany), shared with it the brunt of the defeat in the 1945 year, and was restored as an independent state only in the 1955 year. Hungary became the most loyal ally of Nazi Germany, who fought on its side longer than other satellites. With the active support of Hitler in 1938-41, Hungary regained control of the southern regions of Slovakia, the Transcarpathian Ukraine, part of Transylvania, Vojvodina in the north of present-day Serbia. But even these short-term “acquisitions” were significantly smaller than the “Hungarian” part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and after the defeat of Germany and its allies, Hungary had to return to the borders drawn in the Great Trianon Palace.
Separation from the disintegrating Russian Empire of Poland and the annexation of the German and Austrian parts, the revival of the great Polish state after 123, the significant expansion of Romania, the subsequent approval of independent Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia led to the emergence of a so-called “sanitary cordon” », Designed to protect Western Europe from the spread of the ideas of Bolshevism. Isolation from Soviet Russia of Germany and Hungary, in which the Soviet republics also arose in 1919, was mainly assumed.
21 was the first to speak about the sanitary cordon on January 1919 at the Paris Peace Conference Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando: “Usually, to stop the spread of the epidemic, a sanitary cordon is set. If you take similar measures against the spread of Bolshevism, it could be defeated, because to isolate it means to win. ”
At the beginning of 1919, the Entente countries still hoped that Ukraine and the states of Transcaucasia, and, possibly, even the states of the Don and Kuban Cossacks, would also be included in the “sanitary cordon” on the borders of Soviet Russia. French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau in March 1919, he urged the states bordering on Soviet Russia to form an anti-Bolshevik defensive alliance in order to isolate Europe from the “export of revolution”. But the “sanitary cordon”, which really protected Europe in the 20-s from Bolshevism, did not save it in the 30-s from the spread of Nazism, the first victims of which were Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland.
From the Ottoman Empire to the secular republic
The post-war territorial and political changes in the Middle East were no less long than in Europe. After all, here the winners "sorted out the bones" of the whole Ottoman Empire, and even in 1920, it was not yet completely clear what exactly and in what boundaries would arise in its place, especially in those areas where for centuries the Turks, Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians, Kurds and Arabs lived mixed up.
The first peace treaty with the Ottoman Empire was Sevres. It was signed by 10 August 1920 of the year in the south-western suburb of Paris - Sevres, and according to its conditions, the Turks were reconciled with France, Great Britain, USA, Italy, Japan, Belgium, Greece, Romania, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians, Hejaz, Portugal , Poland, Czechoslovakia, as well as Armenia, not yet occupied by Soviet troops and maintaining independence.
The signing of the Treaty of Sevres, 1920 year.
The Sevres Peace Treaty was based on the Saxe-Pico Anglo-French agreement on the division of the Ottoman Empire from 1916 of the year, supported by the decisions of the San Remo conference in April of 1920, the only difference being that the claims of the Russian Empire in the north-east of the former The Ottoman Empire "inherited" Armenia. By the time of its signing, most of Turkey was already occupied by the troops of the great powers.
According to the Treaty of Sevres, the Ottoman Empire turned into a relatively small (even smaller than the current Turkey) state. She recognized the transfer of Egypt to the British protectorate, refused any other territorial claims in Africa and on the island of Cyprus, which de facto was already under British control from 1878 year. The territories of Palestine (modern Israel and the Palestinian Autonomy), Transjordan (modern Jordan), Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) came under British control as mandated territories. Syria and Lebanon were transferred as mandated territories of France. The Ottoman Empire recognized the secession of the Hejaz and renounced any claims to other territories of the Arabian Peninsula. The Dodecanese Islands (southeastern part of the islands of the Greek archipelago, now belonging to Greece) were transferred to Italy. Greece included almost the entire European part of Turkey (along with the city of Adrianople, now Edirne and the Gallipoli Peninsula), as well as the city of Smyrna (now Izmir) with the surroundings in the west of the Asian coast of Turkey and a number of islands in the Aegean Sea. The Ottoman Empire recognized the independence of Armenia, and, moreover, not in the current borders, but as a “big Armenia”, including the territories conquered from the Ottoman Empire by Russian troops in 1915-17. It was also assumed the creation of an independent Kurdish state (in the southeast of present-day Turkey), and Constantinople and the straits zone from the Aegean to the Black Sea were declared a demilitarized zone, passed under international control. The remaining territory on the peninsula of Asia Minor actually turned into a protectorate of the Entente countries. A significant part of it was already occupied by British, French, Italian and Greek troops.
The Treaty of Sevres was perceived in Turkey not only as extremely unfair, but also as an obvious manifestation of the Sultan’s inability to at least somehow protect national interests. By that time, an alternative to the sultan's government in Ankara, led by the future legendary leader of the republican Turkey, Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk), was already functioning in Asia Minor. It refused to recognize the Sevres Peace Treaty and entered the war with the Armenians and Greeks. The Kemalists managed to oust even the French and Italians from the Mediterranean coast and gradually became the de facto main political force in Turkey. As a result, the Entente countries had to conclude a new truce with them (in October 1922) and sign a new peace treaty.
It was issued on July 24 1923 of the year in the Swiss city of Lausanne and was named the “Lausanne Peace Treaty”. Greece, Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, Romania and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes agreed to recognize Turkey within borders close to modern ones (they changed only in 1939, when, after the referendum, the current Il Khatai on the east coast of the Mediterranean ). Turkey retained Istanbul and eastern Thrace, Izmir. At the same time, she confirmed the waiver of rights to islands in the Aegean Sea, Cyprus, Hejaz and other Arabs-populated territories of the Middle East, which became mandated territories of France and Great Britain, and agreed to a partial payment of debts of the Ottoman Empire. October 29 Turkey 1923 was proclaimed secular republic.
Signing of the Treaty of Lausanne, 1923 year.
The eastern frontier of “Kemalist” Turkey (with modern Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan) was approved in 1921 by the Moscow and Kars treaties of the government in Ankara with the RSFSR and the Transcaucasian Soviet republics. Here, Turkey even managed to expand a little compared to the former border of the Ottoman and Russian empires: the Bolsheviks handed over to Kars, Ardahan and the southern part of the Batumi region themselves. The great moral trauma of the Armenian people was the fact that Mount Ararat, sacred to Armenians, turned out to be in Turkey. In the Treaty of Lausanne, Turkey also succeeded in rejecting the creation of a “national center” of Armenians, which meant that the Entente countries actually recognized the border with the Bolsheviks.
It is worth noting that despite the entire duration and painful pacification of the Entente with Turkey, the new borders “on living” and the very transformation of the Ottoman Empire into the secular Republic of Lausanne peace treaty turned out to be the most productive: in the new “Kemalist” Turkey they did not prevail so strong revanchist moods that the country took part in the Second World War. Though with great difficulty, in the 1939-45 years, Turkey managed to maintain neutrality. It was only in February 1945, she purely declaratively declared war on Germany.
Why Versailles did not bring peace
Even before the conclusion of an armistice on the Western Front, the view that the “peace without annexations and indemnities” was necessary was not only shared by the Russian Bolsheviks. At least - in the form of "without hard annexations and indemnities." For example, the openly anti-Bolshevik newspaper “Kievskaya Mysl” in No. 205 of 5 in November 1918 of the year wrote: “It would be a mistake to view the German coalition as an amount brought to an insignificant value and arrogantly dictate its will to it. Germany still retains a huge reserve of forces, and the powers of consent, in turn, came to the border of exhaustion. "
Vladimir Lenin, the head of the first Soviet government, believed that the Treaty of Versailles was “a treaty of predators and robbers”: “This is an unprecedented, predatory world that puts tens of millions of people, including the most civilized, into slaves. This is not peace, but conditions dictated by robbers with a knife in the hands of a defenseless victim. ”
The commander-in-chief of the troops of the Entente countries, Ferdinand Foch, having read the text of the peace treaty, exclaimed: "This is not peace, this is a truce of twenty years." History showed that he was right up to two months and two days.
Interesting is also the assessment of General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) Joseph Stalin, expressed in an interview with the future British Prime Minister Anthony Eden as early as 1935, when Hitler had only come to power in Germany and did not send his troops even into the demilitarized Rhineland: “ Sooner or later, the German people had to be freed from the Versailles chains ... I repeat, such a great people, like the Germans, had to break free from the chains of Versailles. "
But for all the humiliation of the Versailles Peace Treaty, Germany was not “finished off”, occupied by the winners for decades and dismembered into parts, as happened after the 1945 year. It is not surprising that articles on the disarmament of the German army were violated in the most brutal way long before Hitler came to power and his resolute refusal. The American historian Richard Pipes makes an interesting comparison with what might have been done with a concrete example: “The conditions of the Brest peace provided an opportunity to imagine what peace the countries of the Fourth Consent would have to sign, and testified to how unfounded Germany’s complaints about the Versailles peace were , the former in all respects softer. "
Indeed, only a small part of Germany along the banks of the Rhine River was subjected to total 15 years. However, we can not say that the French did not make attempts to expand the zone of occupation, but they encountered strong resistance from all sides, both from the Germans and from their own allies.
We are talking about the events of 1922-23's, when France expressed its extreme displeasure with Germany’s conclusion of the Rapala treaty with Soviet Russia. On May 2, the Commander-in-Chief of the Entente countries in the Rhineland, General Deguut, in the light of the signing of the Soviet-German treaty, wrote to the Minister of War Andre Maginot that France no longer needs to waste time if it wants to occupy the entire Ruhr basin. The French decided to take this step half a year later: Raymond Poincaré, who had by that time passed from the presidential post to the post of prime minister, January 9, 1923, ordered the advance of French troops to the east. The pretext was to ensure the activity of a control commission specially sent to the region (three international control commissions were created following the results of the Versailles Peace Treaty, they had to monitor the completeness of reparation payments). But in fact, the French took control of the most industrially developed region of Germany (Ruhr), producing 88% coal, 48% iron, 70% cast iron.
Among the Germans, this move caused a storm of protests, and even the democratic "Weimar" government called on the population of the occupied area to "passive resistance." In the Rhineland, a series of strikes broke out, reaching their apogee by August 1923 of the year (400 of thousands of workers were on strike, demanding the departure of the invaders, supported throughout Germany). Raymond Poincaré again spoke of his desire to achieve the assignment of the Rhineland and the Ruru status similar to the status of the Saar region, where the ownership of German territory was only of a formal nature, and power would be in the hands of the French. For this, he was severely criticized by the governments of Great Britain and the USA, which still did not want France to gain too much power. As a result, the occupation of the Ruhr cost the French more than the additional profits that it received from the coal mines and steel mills.
By August 1925, the French troops were forced to leave the Ruhr, and to ensure uninterrupted reparation payments and supplies, another international committee of experts was convened under the leadership of the American general and businessman Charles Gates Dawes, who approved the so-called “Dawes Plan”. According to this plan, rich America actually paid for ruined Germany at first: before 1929, the Germans received mainly from the USA loans for 21 a billion marks, which went both to the development of production and the modernization of German industry, and to urgent payments to the Entente countries (for the first year Germany’s implementation of the Dawes Plan had to independently pay the entire 200 million marks). And, according to the proverb “whoever is having dinner, he dances her”, France was finally pushed out of the main role in resolving the “German issue”, but the monetary pumping of Germany by American loans led to the rapid recovery of German science, economy, and military power.
Henry Kissinger describes the inter-alliance contradictions that ultimately led to the failure of the whole peace treaty: “The Versailles settlement was stillborn, since the values on which it rested did not fit with the incentives to maintain it; the majority of states that were required to ensure the protection of the agreements reached, in one way or another, considered them unfair. ”
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