Instability in the postwar world

¶ … World War I and related events of 1917-1919 (the Russian and German Revolutions, the Treaty of Versailles, and others) helped to create an unstable postwar world.

The Treaty of Versailles is widely considered one of the most disastrous peace treaties ever negotiated, and one of the primary, contributing causes to the unstable postwar environment that gave rise to World War II. This is despite the fact that the Treaty established many new independent nations, including Poland; established many colonial trusts; included a pledge of all signing nations to disarm, and created the League of Nations. However, despite Woodrow Wilson's initial protestations, Germany was forced to accept responsibility "for all losses and damages in the conflict in what was termed the war guilt clause" ("Wars and Battles," U.S. History, 2010). Germany was required to radically reduce the size of its military, totally demilitarize the Rhineland and give back the Alsace and Lorraine region to France. This created anger and resentment in the hearts of the German people. Germany felt that it was unfairly blamed for a war that was also the result of the actions of the other major European powers, not simply its own militarism. Also the unification of Germany had defined German national identity around Germany's military capabilities, a claim to fame was now stolen from it by the Versailles Treaty. In fact, many residents of other European nations, including some members of the British aristocracy, felt that Germany had been unfairly treated -- and this sense of injustice initially caused some non-Germans to fail to adequately understand the threat that the Nazi leadership posed to the rest of Europe.

Combined with the prohibitively costly war reparations, the Germany spirit and the German economy were completely depleted by the Treaty. Germany suffered the effects of the worldwide Great Depression to an even greater degree than other nations as a result of the enforced payment of reparations. All European nations suffered devastating postwar economic consequences, which further increased the reluctance to use military force to subdue Hitler. The United States enjoyed a postwar boom, given that none of the battles had been waged upon its own territories. But the Republican-dominated Senate refused to allow the U.S. To become a member of the League of Nations, and the absence of strong American leadership made the League ineffective as a peacekeeping force. Germany was also stripped of all of its colonies: the fact that many new nations were created in the redrawing of the map of Europe meant that many of the recently evolved national identities and infrastructures of new countries were quite fragile.