Treaty of Versailles signed in 1919

 

The Treaty of Versailles was a peace document signed between Imperial Germany and the Allied Powers on 28th June 1919. The treaty ended the state of war that had existed between Germany and the Allies from 1914 and brought World War I to an end. The treaty gets its name from the Palace of Versailles where it was signed.

Impact of the Treaty of Versailles

World War I had broken out in July 1914 when a Serb nationalist, Gavrilo Princip, assassinated Archduke Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and his wife in Sarajevo. Gavrilo was a member of the Black Hand, a Serb nationalistic group with the aim of uniting Serbs living outside the kingdom of Serbia. This had prompted the Austro-Hungarian Empire to declare war on Serbia and in return Serbia’s allies declared war on the Austro-Hungarian Empire, thus sparking the war.

The German people were furious that this fact was ignored by the Allies and Germany was made the sole party responsible for all the horrors of World War I. The nation’s burden of reparations crossed 132 billion gold Reichsmarks. It was a sum so huge that economists like John Maynard Keynes pointed out that Germany would not be able to pay it in full and even if, by chance that it did, the European economy would collapse.

The economic hardship and the resentment of the treaty within Germany were fertile grounds for ultra-nationalist sentiments, which were exploited by Hitler and his Nazi Party to seize power and laid the groundwork for World War II, a conflict far deadlier and devastating than World War I had ever been.