It had become clear to the German people that losing was inevitable. They were disillusioned with the politics and harsh conditions of war, and many lent their support to the extremist parties which had emerged all over Germany. On 9 November , having lost the support of the military, and with a revolution underway at home, Kaiser Wilhelm II was forced to abdicate his throne and flee Germany for Holland.
Power was handed to a government led by the leader of the left-wing Social Democratic Party, Friedrich Ebert. The armistice was agreed on 11 November , but the formal peace treaty was not agreed until the following year. This peace treaty became known as The Treaty of Versailles. It was signed on 28 June Germany was not invited to contribute to these discussions.
Germany assumed that the point plan , set out by President Woodrow Wilson of the USA in January , would form the basis of the peace treaty. However, France, who had suffered considerably in the war, was determined to make sure that Germany would not be able to challenge them again.
The German Army was limited to , soldiers, and the navy was limited to 15, sailors. The Treaty of Versailles was very unpopular in Germany and was viewed as extremely harsh. Faced with the revolutionary atmosphere at home, and shortages from the conditions of war, the German government reluctantly agreed to accept the terms with two exceptions.
They did not accept admitting total responsibility for starting the war, and they did not accept that the former Kaiser should be put on trial. The Allies rejected this proposal, and demanded that Germany accept all terms unconditionally or face returning to war.
The German government had no choice. Many Germans were outraged by the Treaty of Versailles. Initially, Allied forces still blocked shipments of food and supplies from entering Germany. Although some food and supplies got through, these were sparse and therefore expensive. When this is done we come to the question of Germany's capacity to pay; we all think she will be unable to pay more than this document requires of her. The Allied delegations treated Article as mundane since it was intended to limit German liability with regard to reparations and were surprised at the reaction when the German delegation read the peace terms in June Historian Margaret MacMillan comments that the German public's interpretation of Article as unequivocally ascribing the fault for the war to Germany and her allies, says Macmillan, "came to be the object of particular loathing in Germany and the cause of uneasy consciences among the Allies.
President Wilson had downplayed the guilt theme before Paris but he took an increasingly hard stand and rejected advice to soften the Treaty. By blaming only Germany and its allies for causing the war, Article has often been cited by scholars as one of the causes of the rise of Nazism in Germany.
Hitler in particular made it a major theme. Richard Bessell wrote, "The vast majority of Germans refused to accept the post-war settlement, in particular the imposition of the Versailles Treaty. Marks points out that the next article, Article of the Versailles treaty, limits German responsibility to pay only for civilian damages, and that when a conference was called in London in to determine how much Germany should pay, the Allies calculated on the basis of what Germany could pay, not on their needs.
Of these, the C Bonds, which contained the bulk of the German obligation, were deliberately designed to be chimerical" and "their primary function was to mislead public opinion in the receiver countries into believing that the billion mark figure was being maintained.
Bell reinforces this position and further notes that two thirds of the reparation figure was contained within C Bond category which "amounted to indefinite postponement" of that sum. The A Bonds amounted to 12 billion gold marks and the B bonds a further 38 billion marks, which equated to around Military Wiki Explore.
Popular pages. Raaen, Jr. Project maintenance. Register Don't have an account? Articles compelled Germany to turn over its coal mines in the Saar Basin to France, although they technically were under control of the League of Nations. When the election finally was held in , 90 percent of them voted to be part of Germany. Article 51 took the territory of Alsace-Lorraine, which Germany had seized during the and gave it back to France.
Articles and Article forced the Germans to dismantle their fortifications along the Rhine river. Article 80 required Germany to respect the independence of Austria.
Articles compelled Germany to renounce territorial claims and recognize the independence of Czechoslovakia, a new nation formed from several provinces of former German ally Austria-Hungary, whose western portion had a sizable minority of ethnic Germans. Articles gave what had been German West Prussia and other territory with ethnic German inhabitants to newly-independent Poland.
Article stripped Germany of its colonies in China and Africa, which Qualls explains was a particularly humbling provision. Articles reduced the size of the German army, which had reached 1. It even specified strict limits on the number of infantry, artillery and engineers, and limited the officer corps to 4, Articles disarmed the German military, limiting the number of weapons and even how much ammunition it could possess. Smaller artillery pieces, for example, were allotted 1, rounds, while bigger guns got just shells.
Germany could only manufacture new war materiel in a few factories approved by the Allies.
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