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Modern World History 8.1 Treaty of Versailles 80 Views


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Description:

Peace in Europe after WWI sounded great, but the Treaty of Versailles felt just ever-so-slightly one-sided.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:03

With World War one over at long last President Woodrow Wilson hoped to [Wilson in office]

00:08

bring peace equality and freedom to the world of course the only way to

00:13

accomplish this was with the plan he come up with called the fourteen points

00:17

it was a pretty cool plan nice and shiny even had that new car smell too bad none [Fourteen point plan with a car air freshener]

00:22

of the other allies liked it you see France wanted to put the screws

00:25

to Germany for all the damage done to France and its people during the

00:28

conflict when Great Britain wanted German naval power to be a thing of the

00:33

distant past so while the Germans were hoping for a peace treaty that wasn't

00:37

too terrible because after all they ditched war mongering Kaiser Wilhelm II

00:42

and embraced democracy, they really didn't have a say in what would [The treaty of peace document]

00:46

become the Treaty of Versailles.. German troops and fortifications were banned

00:50

from the area west of the Rhine River Allied troops however were not, Germany

00:55

lost all of the colonies and conquered territories it had spent so much time

00:59

and money acquiring Alsace Lorraine and the Saar

01:03

coalfields went to France the Baltic states were carved out of former German

01:07

territory and Poland got to be a nation-state of its very own again [Poland outlined on a map]

01:11

well the Treaty of Versailles completely disarmed Germany, the Germans lost

01:15

control of their Navy well their army was whittled down to like a dozen old [Old guy in German army]

01:19

guys on crutches they also weren't allowed to possess anything even

01:23

remotely weapony like submarines heavy artillery or particularly sharp crayons [Heavy war artillery and a crayon]

01:28

perhaps the nastiest part of the treaty from Germany's point of view involved

01:32

money essentially the Allies wanted compensation for all they had lost in

01:36

the war France was especially vocal on this point the numbers thrown about at

01:41

the treaty negotiations were nonsensical in the end there was no amount set for [People in treaty negotiations]

01:46

German reparations it was simply understood that the number

01:49

was going to be ridiculously big and then there was the war guilt clause this

01:55

to the Germans was the rotting cherry on top of the garbage sundae the Allies [A plate of garbage bags with a rotten cherry]

01:59

expected Germany to accept all responsibility for World War one the

02:03

millions of deaths the billions of dollars of destruction yeah all

02:06

Germany's fault well you can probably understand why the Germans we're a

02:10

little upset with final draft of the Treaty of Versailles

02:13

Not only did the treaty fail to embrace any of the peace and love that had been

02:17

present in Wilson's fourteen points but its requirements would make it virtually [Newspaper article on treaty]

02:21

impossible for the Germans to recover from the war

02:24

well furthermore the Germans thought it was complete BS that they should accept

02:28

sole responsibility for the conflict so in May of 1919 the Germans said nope and

02:34

boogied right out of the Treaty of Versailles

02:36

the Allies threatened to restart the war the crisis only resolved itself when two

02:41

guys no one had ever heard of from the German side were brought in to sign the

02:45

treaty while hindsight's 2020 it was pretty obvious from the get-go the

02:49

treaty was going to be a big fat failure really it's only success was in making

02:53

the German people really really really mad and unfortunately there was no way

02:58

for Europe to run away from the nest of Hornets it had created [Hitler appears next to a man]

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