Treaty of Versailles

Signed 28 June 1919

The Treaty was the outcome of the peace conference convened at Versailles in January 1919, following the armistice with Germany in November 1918. It was signed by the victorious Allied powers and Germany in the hall of mirrors at Versailles, the place where the German Reich had been declared in 1871.

In the Treaty the Allies sought to lay the blame for the war on Germany and ensure that she would no longer have the military power to wage war on her neighbours. Its main terms were as follows:

• a limit of 100,000 men to be placed on the size of the German army ;
• the disbanding of the German navy and air force;
• an acknowledgment of 'war guilt';
• the loss of Alsace-Lorraine to France in the west, much of Eastern Germany to the newly re-established Polish state in the east, and territory to the new state of Czechoslovakia in the southeast;
• the payment by Germany of 'reparations' to the Allies, especially Belgium and France, for damage caused by the war;
• the loss of all German colonies.

The Treaty also included the Covenant for the League of Nations, a new international body which would come into being as the Treaty's terms came into force on 10 January 1920.

In Germany it was felt that an unduly harsh settlement had been imposed by the victors. The Treaty's terms certainly gave considerable scope for German resentment to build up and in the following years there was some sympathy for the German view in the Allied countries, especially Britain and the United States. Such attitudes, combined with a war weariness helped to create a climate for the 'appeasement' of the 1930's.

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