How Harsh was the Treaty of Versailles Really? (Short Animated Documentary)

The Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War One, is perhaps the most famous peace treaty in human history. It ended the German Empire, assigned Germany the blame for the First World War and took a chunk of its territory away from it and gave it to France, Poland, Denmark and Lithuania.

It's often decried as being too harsh and as being the cause of World War 2. But just how harsh was the Treaty of Versailles, was it really that bad? Find out in this video, the latest in my very short, animated historical documentaries (about history).

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Sources:
Justice and Moral Regeneration: Lessons from the Treaty of Versailles by Catherine Lu

Mistakes and Myths: The Allies, Germany, and the Versailles Treaty, 1918–1921 by Sally Marks

German Taxation Policy in the World-War by R. R. Kuczynski (This was literally written in 1923 but sweet Bismarck I couldn’t find any information on German tax receipts).

Fiscal Centralization, Limited Government, and Public Revenues in Europe, 1650–1913

[ronaldderooij]

the French general Foch said of the Versailles peace treaty: This is not a peace treaty, this is a 20 year truce. He was off only a few months....

[Fonblockland]

France in 1806: Bruh what if we broke up the Holy Roman Empire?


France in 1918: Bruh what if we broke up Germany and recreated the Holy Roman Empire?

[decus]

The Treaty of Versailles struck the perfect balance between being just harsh enough that the Germans would want to start another war over it, and just lenient enough that they had a reasonable shot at winning it.

[jasonduhela]

Second Reich: we lost a lot of territory. This was super unfair.
Austro-Hungarian empire: you guys still have territory?!

[MiguelLopez-ycrh]

Dont forget that Germany also lost all their colonies in Africa and Asia.

[samaritan]

I had a heart attack when you didn't mention James Bisenette first.

[highgrounder]

One thing you forgot about was that East Prussia was cut off from the German mainland. Most people could only get from one part of Germany to the other via plane or boat, which both were pretty expensive.

[themymablo]

The Treaty of Versailles was seen as harsh because this wasnt the time of multi ethnic monarchies anymore, but the time of nation states. The Entente acted like they cared about the self determination of people, but in fact they split up many parts mostly inhabited by Germans and even forbid the remains of Austria to unify with Germany, even though this was the wish of the people at that time. In in contrast to that, Russia/USSR would "only" have lost regions not predominantly inhabited by Russians in the treaty of Brest-Litovsk. They also forced the Central Powers to take all the blame for the war, which was obviously not true and made the people in these countries very angry.

[richardkenan]

The big problem is that the Germans didn't really feel like they'd lost. The entire war had been waged outside of Germany, and the German government sued for peace before they were really pushed back. So the German people felt like they shouldn't be treated like a conquered nation. By contrast, most of the other, harsher treaties were imposed on countries that had actually been conquered, or at least successfully invaded. And probably the harshest part was the moral effect of being forced to accept sole responsibility for the war, which is an obviously idiotic assertion to begin with. More responsible than other major powers, maybe - but only slightly so. Nobody in Europe was free of blame for setting up WW1 to start and be unbelievably horrific.


Regardless of your opinion on how harsh the Treaty of Versailles was, though, I think we can all agree that World War I was a really bad idea for everybody involved.

[mxsng]

Harsh enough for them to do a epic sequel

[mikaelb.]

1. The worst part of Versailles was not the loss of land but the lie that Germany had started the war and was to blame which still is believed by most people today. Did Germany order the assassination of the Austrian arch-duke? No, Serbia/Russia did. Was Germany the first nation to declare war? No, Austria-Hungary did. Was Germany the first nation to mobilise its army? No, Russia and France did.
2. You can't compare the other treaties of Paris with Versailles as Germany lost lands which were predominantly inhabited by ethnic Germans while Hungary and Austria lost parts which where inhabited by non-Hungarians like Slovakia and Croatia. Same goes for Brest-Litovsk: That treaty gave independence to nations that had been under Russian rule but had non-Russian ethnicities.

[luisandrade]

This comparisons aren't fair because
1- the lands lost by Germany had significant German populations unlike the other treaties especially Trianon and Brest litovsk
2- it was the stupidly high reparations much much stronger than other central nations or France faced that made the treaty so infamous. Even British economists like John Maynard Keynes predicted starvation and revanchism

[frenci]

One of the reasons that the Treaty of Versailles was seen as harsh was because the frontline never entered in German territory, which sounds like a good thing but at the eyes of many germans the war wasn't lost yet.

Now knowing how brutal that war was I wouldn't have complained, but for someone that have been in a society focussed on the war and with a lot of war propaganda it's a different story.

[ronanconcannon]

Surprised that you didn't compare it to the Congress of Vienna where France was able to keep all of its original territory.

[Tyrgalon]

The great depression arriving while germany was already strugling with the reparations and then France occupying the rhur valley with its industry also has a lot to do with the perception of the treaty.

[ArtemisScribe]

Wow, I'm pretty shook at just how radically different this is from what I learnt in school. Context really is king.

[Kalleboost]

Just wanna note that the northern part of Germany, Northern Schleswig was given to Denmark via local voting, the rest of Schleswig and Holstein decided to stay German

[bificommander]

1:53 Stalin's glare... he's not holding the Soon sign, but he's thinking it.

[bbite]

The treaty includes no provisions for the economic rehabilitation of Europe – nothing to make the defeated central empires into good neighbours, nothing to stabilise the new states of Europe, nothing to reclaim Russia; nor does it promote a compact of economic solidarity among the allies themselves; no arrangement was reached at Paris for restoring the disordered finances of France and Italy, or to adjust the systems of the old world and the new.
-Keynes

One of the few who realized the mistake in Paris early on. It doesn’t matter how harsh a treaty is compared to another, the context is important. This includes also the role a country has in a system, like the central powers had in the economy of Europe. In the end, it would be enough to not just be a burden on europe but especially on the young Weimar Republic. It would became a perfect breading ground for radical ideas and ideologies, especially when the life’s of millions are heavily affected by it. A machine doesn’t work when their parts are broken. The best way to compare it is a jenga tower, you can take but it will destabilize you. You take too much and the entire thing will come crushing down at you, in one way or another. The best way would have been by not taking much or nothing it all and instead stabilizing it and prevent others to take pieces out of it. It was this lesson the world had yet to learn, just good they did and created the EU, it was this concept that was needed at the time. Not being harsh or even more harsh, but deciding for a solution that has solidarity in it.

[ForageGardener]

Britain didn't want Germany carved up because that would make France the strongest power in Europe