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  • Essay / The Treaty of Versailles and an armistice between the two world wars

    “Peace was only an interval between wars”, Erich Ludendorff, a German general who was primarily responsible for policy and strategy military personnel of Germany during the final years of World War I and later became part of Nazism, once argued. As he once said, shortly after unleashing a storm on the world, a perhaps far worse storm that his nation had brought about threw the world into chaos once again. World War II was inevitable given the complexity of the various factors that led to the war. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayFirst, the treatment of the defeated nations that seemed unreasonable led to their economic crisis and resentment toward the Allies , so that he overthrew the throne on a chauvinistic power. Since Germany was forced to pay huge reparations under the Treaty of Versailles, deadly inflation obviously occurred, and as this vicious cycle repeated itself, the economy inexorably deteriorated. He also admitted that Count Brockdorff-Rantzau, head of the German delegation at Versailles, had declared that "those who sign this treaty will sign the death sentence for several million German men, women and children." The Weimar Republic, led by the presidents of the time Friedrich Ebert and Paul von Hindenburg, did not even manage to seize its throne; they were condemned as traitors who had sold out the nation under the treaty by associating with foreign powers. Additionally, most Germans were still unwilling to admit that the nation was devastated or defeated, while revealing that it was a conspiracy. The German newspaper Deutsche Zeitung spoke of the treaty with a resentment that might have been felt by the German public at the time. “Today, in the Hall of Mirrors, the shameful armistice treaty between the three world wars is signed. Don't forget it. The German people, with incessant working pressure, will strive to regain their rightful place among the nations. Then will come the revenge of the shame of 1919.” As the situation became more and more revolting, they were unable to exercise their power correctly. And the economy has deteriorated. The value of a gold mark in paper marks had increased over the years since 1918; it started from around 1 in 1918, it reached a trillion in 1923. As the value of a gold mark soared, while the singular mark collapsed, showing how hyperinflation in Germany continued. Even though the Weimar Republic continually complained about imposing too high compensation, France seized the Ruhr industrial zone in 1923 in order to be fully compensated. In 1924, according to the Dawes Plan, the United States offered a huge loan to the Weimar region for which it prospered again until 1929, when the Great Depression suddenly broke out. Worried, American bankers demanded repayment of their foreign loans and American investors withdrew their money from Europe. The U.S. Congress imposed higher tariffs on goods, which shook the world economy, including that of Weimar. Alongside the Great Depression and the subsequent global economic crisis, unemployment rates suddenly rose to over 20% in Germany, the United States and Britain, and especially to 30% in Germany. World trade has also deteriorated; started from 30 billion dollars in 1929, it reached around 10 billion dollars in 1933.As this evidence directly shows, subsequent national economic collapses caused unrest throughout the world, deepening despair and hurting even in a society that found only stability in that era of the armistice between the wars 4. And the Nazis led by Adolf Hitler intervened in this gap, appealing to the conservatives by striking the communists in Germany and with their support they emerged as a huge party and gained political influence by occupying most parliamentary seats. A cartoon made in 1938, just before the war, supports this claim that the Treaty of Versailles conclusively led to the rise of totalitarianism by depicting a man wearing a helmet with the name Hitler slowly escaping from 'a paper on which the treaty is written. Not only Germany suffered because of the Treaty, but also other nations who would defend the Axis in the coming war. Austria had to sign the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye between the Allies and Austria was forced not to merge with Germany again amid a loss of much of its territory. Faced with these situations, the chauvinistic powers that were just beginning to emerge and were already aware that the public was enraged by defeat incited the public to the need to reclaim their lands lost to World War I, and what they ultimately practiced doing was to start a new war. Second, the Allies did not prefer to restart the war nor were they preparing to face an epidemic coming from Germany. In particular, France and Britain, who had led the Allied forces in the previous war against Germany, were devastated and never wanted to be involved in the war again. Even early on, Allied leaders even saw that he was radical, so he would protect Westerners from the communists - the USSR - and believed that if Germany could be a bulwark of the West against communism, this would not be a loss to leave Germany totalitarian. Allied leaders valued what Hitler had done for Germany's development and viewed the Treaty of Versailles as a failure that constituted neither punishment nor appeasement. However, at that time, based on what he had done secretly, Hitler was merging Austria with Germany by justifying that they were the same race. By this time, most German races were enthusiastic about Hitler's plan to unify the Germans and defended it. And that’s what those in Czechoslovakia did. As they seemed to revolt, the government asked France for help. But France was reluctant to get involved in this matter because Britain was reluctant to support it. Britain was still rebuilding its military strength and did not have enough power to enter the war. To put an end to this issue, Prime Minister Nevile Chamberlain went to Munich to meet Hitler and he promised Hitler that the German territory in Czechoslovakia would be ceded to Germany. However, as Hitler wanted to alienate all of Czechoslovakia, France and Britain refused him. But as this back-and-forth situation continued, France and Britain mistakenly believed that the Germans would not dare resume a war because they had already experienced tragedy. However, given how Hitler made the public to be his defenders, there was no other way but war for Hitler. Fortunately, with Mussolini's arbitration, they concluded that there would be a surrender.