Treaty of Versailles: Do Peace Settlements Create Conditions for New Conflicts?

“Peace settlements create conditions for new conflicts. ” With reference to the Treaty of Versailles explain to what extent you agree with this statement. (2005) Peace settlements or treaties are set up to establish some ground rules between countries that are included within the settlement. Within these peace settlement restrictions that benefit some countries and harm others are imposed by the conferences that these settlements are created.

In the Treaty of Versailles signed after the First World War Germany suffered of harm due to the restrictions it imposed on the country which included a loss of land, demilitarization and other restrictions. Germany was the country least benefited from this agreement while other countries like France who created the Treaty were benefited due to the extensive payments that Germany had to pay France due to the destruction it caused. This Treaty led to new tensions within new countries that were formed due to the division of land due to different nationalities forced to be enclosed within one newly formed country.

After the end of World War One a peace conference was set up in order to determine how the destruction caused by the war was going to be handled in order to try and satisfy rival countries. In the conference of the creation of The Treaty of Versailles the major consensus that its members arrived to was that the blame for most of the destruction in Europe was to be blamed to Germany. Germany due to its diplomatic relations had no vote in the future of the country of Germany which included a reduction in its army to 100,000 soldiers, no U-boats, reduced navy, no air force.

This was implemented due to fear of a new attack by the German power to weakened countries in Europe which led to these restrictions in order to have full militaristic control over Germany. Not only did militaristic control gain provide security to the rival countries but security that Germany would be isolated and weak was one ultimate goal of the treaty which stated that Germany could not join up with an allied of the war in order to defend itself, its most important industrial geographical section was taken away in order to prevent militaristic growth which could mean it could serve as a defense territory for France.

This loss in an economic producing part of Germany caused tensions to arise between France and Germany because the Germans could not pay any of the payments to France due to the economic crisis that struck Germany after the treaty of Versailles was imposed. This caused a inflation growth in Germany where its currency lost total value and this caused France to begin tensions with Germany because Germany had no money to pay the installments and France demanded them in order to “recuperate” from the destruction produced by Germany.

In order to establish control and enforcement of the following of the Treaty of Versailles the United States imposed the Dawes plan that lent money to Germany to pay the installments and recuperate from the economic crisis but it had to be paid back and this caused Germany to fall into a deeper problem since when the United States demanded the money to be returned in the Great Depression Germany did not possess any money available to pay this loan causing tensions with countries abroad Europe.

The creation of new countries came about when the division of land was decided by the treaty of Versailles. These new countries were land recovered from the major powers and mostly were taken from Germany due to the main blame for the war. This caused several different types of tensions among the people of different nationalities within the newly formed countries due to the difference in nationalities of the people who were enclosed within these new countries due to constant clashes of racial, ethnical disagreements.

This of course caused discontent in the countries that the land was taken away from most evidently and most explicitly shown in Germany under the power of Adolf Hitler in 1933. Hitler as a totalitarian leader has several goals he wishes to reach while he is in power and one of these was that he wanted to rejoin all the German speaking people into one country in order to create one strong Germany but this was a difficult job since the Treaty of Versailles caused many German speaking people to be separated from the main country and be put into newly formed countries.

This caused the people to feel oppressed and Hitler grew a hate to the Treaty due to the oppression it produced on the people of Germany. Ultimately this peace settlement created a new condition for a new conflict which later became known as World War Two due to the discontent Hitler had towards it and the ultimate goal he had which was to abolish it with no matter how many lives it took or how much destruction it would take. And as history shows there was no opposition in the beginning of his destruction of the treaty ue to the fear that any obstruction in stopping Hitler might cause a war between a countries that began to grow against another who is recuperating from a devastating war. After analyzing and understanding the reasons and effects of the Treaty of Versailles it can be said with historical facts that the treaty of Versailles set up a scene for a new conflict that would become another total war in a proximity to the previous one that would have never been predicted.

The treaty created oppression towards the people why were involved in it, mainly Germany, which caused clashes and opposition to arise in order to abolish the treaty. Hitler was a complete enemy towards the treaty since he saw the oppression it produced and it had to be destroyed no matter how many lives and destruction and despair it took in order to reach his goal of destroying the treaty. A pace settlement or treaty like the Treaty of Versailles at first shows a future of peace and prosperity at cost of oppression being imposed in enemy countries.

The treaty of Versailles did not cause this wonderful future but caused another major conflict in a short time after this war that would be later called World War Two with the same or more destruction as the one that preceded it years prior. In order to impose a treaty oppression is used and can turn into chaos causing a new major conflict or can be a limit for the opponent in order to control every action it takes as the Treaty of Versailles proved.