Peace Settlement That Ended the First World War

World War I -- the Peace Settlement

Known as "The War to End All Wars," World War I and its terms of peace significantly altered the civilized world and sowed the seeds of World War II. While physically devastating to the four major empires that ruled Europe prior to World War I, the terms of peace were also deeply psychologically devastating to the losers of that War, particularly to Germany. The humiliation and resentment resulting from defeat and from those peace terms provided fertile ground for the rise of Adolf Hitler.

Specific Peace Terms of World War I

Prior to World War I, there had been four major European empires: German, also known as the "Weimar Republic"; Russian; Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman. However, defeat completely disassembled the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires while taking great amounts of land from the German and Russian empires: the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 required the Germans to admit responsibility for World War I, pay reparations[footnoteRef:1], accept occupation and total disarmament[footnoteRef:2], and cede large stretches of its territory to the War's winners[footnoteRef:3], essentially accepting "enforced subservience" to the winners[footnoteRef:4]; the Austro-Hungarian Empire was divided into Austria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Hungary; the Ottoman Empire was dissolved and essentially became the Republic of Turkey. Finally, the Treaty of Versailles established the League of Nations, which was supposed to prevent another World War.[footnoteRef:5] In sum, the terms of peace significantly redesigned Europe and placed considerable sanctions on the German people. [1: Gerhard L. Weinberg, A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 14.] [2: John Keegan, The Battle for History: Re-Fighting World War II (New York, NY: First Vintage Books Edition, 1996), 12.] [3: Ibid.] [4: Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won (New York, NY W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1997), 9.] [5: Weinberg, 12.]

b. Psychological Effects of World War I and Its Peace Terms

Deemed a "leaderless war" won by "a popular readiness to bear suffering" plus American intervention[footnoteRef:6], World War I had deep psychological effects on all parties. First, the War's destructiveness and alteration/dissolution of the prior empires was devastating: "In more than four years of bloodshed and destruction, vast portions of Europe had been wrecked and the domestic institutions of the continent transformed."[footnoteRef:7] Secondly, the defeat had even deeper psychological effects on the losers, particularly on Germany: Adolf Hitler, for example, fought in World War I and found Germany's defeat to be nearly unbearable, personally humiliating and consuming[footnoteRef:8]; Claus van Stauffenberg, a German officer who eventually attempted to assassinate Hitler during WWII, trained as a young soldier in a post-WWI German army intent an avenging "the humiliation of 1918."[footnoteRef:9] Third, the terms of peace were highly resented by the losers, particularly by Germany: for example, despite Germany's official agreement to the Treaty of Versailles, almost no Germans accepted the Treaty's terms of German reparations and disarmament.[footnoteRef:10] The physical devastation, humiliation of defeat and resented terms of peace eventually gave rise to the intense German nationalism that Hitler rode to power. According to Keegan, Hitler's speeches to the German people called them to a new nationhood based on the humiliation caused by defeat in WWI and the terms of peace including occupation and permanent disarmament, toward a victory that would "expunge Versailles."[footnoteRef:11] To that end, Hitler intended to totally reorder the globe through War.[footnoteRef:12] [6: Keegan, 49.] [7: Weinberg, 5-6.] [8: Overy, 10.] [9: Keegan, 65.] [10: Ibid., 9.] [11: Ibid., 12.] [12: Weinberg, 2.]