Guiding Questions:

What were the terms of the peace treaties that were drawn up at the end of the First World
War?

What were the successes and failures of the League of Nations?

What were the developments in the successor states of central and eastern Europe?
How successful was collective security up to 1939?

What were the aims, issues and extent of success of Italian and Germany foreign policies
between 1919 and 1939.

What were the aims, issues and extent of success of the policy of Appeasement?
What was the role of Soviet foreign policy up to 1 941?

How successful was the policy of appeasement?

What was the impact of Chamberlain and the Munich Agreement?

How did the European conflict develop 1939 - 1941?

How effective was the war time alliance, 1941 - 45?

What were the main reasons for Axis defeat in 1945 and Allied victory?

What was the impact of the Second World War on civilian populations of any two countries
between 1939 and 1945?
 Examine the issues with, and responses to, the Treaty of Versailles.
Discuss the aims of the peace settlements (1919-1923) and the issues that arose
with the treaties that followed the First World War.
Evaluate the successes and failures of the peace settlements (1919-1923) up to
1929.
To what extent did the peace settlements (1919-1923) fulfill the aims of the
peacemakers after the First World War?

Consider the painting above by William Orpen which shows the coffin of a British
Soldier in the Hall of Peace at Versailles.
Orpen attended the Versailles Conference as an official painter. What message do you
think he was conveying through this painting?
William Orpen: 'To the unknown soldier in France'
Concluding IWM's British Art of the First World War ehxibition, William Orpen's
controversial painting reveals the artist's disillusionment with Allied leaders and the
Establishment
Richard Slocombe
Senior Art Curator, IWM

5:46PM BST 30 Jul 2014

In the Royal Academy summer show of 1923, society portraitist William Orpen revealed
one of the most contentious images of the First World War.
To the Unknown Soldier in France was the culmination of the artist's often
sentimental regard for the ordinary soldier and his bitterness at the conflict's
resolution.
In 1919, at the behest of Prime Minister David Lloyd George, Orpen was ordered to the
enshrinement of Allied victory, the Paris Peace Conference at the Palace of Versailles,
and under the aegis of the Imperial War Museum instructed to deliver a "suitable and
permanent memento".
Two jaundiced group portraits emerged of delegates. Orpen dwarfed them in the
palace's sumptuous interiors, their petty conniving and self-importance ridiculed.
To the Unknown Soldier began as a group portrait. Early sketches and recent X-ray
photography reveal Allied leaders including Haig, Foch and Lloyd George in the
Palace's Hall of Peace and poised to enter its Hall of Mirrors. Even this earliest
incarnation was subversive, as the pilot ace Arthur Rhys Davids, whom Orpen portrayed
weeks before his death in 1917, appeared alongside the belicose Georges
Clemenceau. But such dissent paled in comparison to the 1923 work, pictured right.
Generals and statesmen were replaced by a single flag-draped coffin flanked by two
nameless, emaciated and semi-nude soldiers derived from Orpen's earlier invocation of
shell-shock, Blown Up (1917). "The only tangible result [of the war] is the ragged
unemployed soldier and the Dead," Orpen said.
The embarrassment that this commission caused ensured it was only accepted into the
Imperial War Museum in 1928, after the artist painted over its most offending features.
3. What problems faced the peacemakers in 1918?
Of the five leading victorious powers, the main negotiators were the 'Big Three': British prime
minister David Lloyd George, French prime minister Georges Clemenceau and US President
Woodrow Wilson. Italian prime minister, Vittorio Orlando, played a more minor role in discussions,
and walked out of the conference after failing to get the territorial gains that Italy had aimed for. The
Japanese delegation were only interested in what was decided about the Pacific.

The main problems facing the peacemakers were:

• Pressure to agree terms due to the anarchy and instability in Europe

• The different aims of the peacemakers
• The nature of the Armistice settlement and the mood of the German population
• The popular sentiment in the Allied countries.

The main concern of the victors was to draw up a settlement for Germany. However, their different
aims made this process very difficult. The peacemakers also had to agree terms relatively quickly
as the blockade was maintained on Germany, and it people continued to suffer, until a Treaty could
be signed.
Woodrow Wilson's was an idealist who had as the basis of his ideas for a peace, his 14
Points:

1. Abolition of secret diplomacy

2. Free navigation at sea for all nations in war and peace
3. Free trade between countries
4. Disarmament by all countries
5. Colonies to have a say in their own future
6. German troops to leave Russia
7. Restoration of independence for Belgium
Clemenceau ridiculed the 14 points by declaring that even God had only needed ten points.

He wanted

• a harsh settlement for Germany.

• a permanently weakened Germany.
• Reparations for French losses.
• to maintain good relations with US and Britain future French security
• France to regain Alsace and Lorraine

Lloyd George wanted a more moderate settlement.

• Germany should lose its navy and colonies, and no longer threaten the British Empire.
• Germany should also be able to economically recover and be able to trade again with Britain.
• Politically Germany must be a bulwark against the spread of Communism from the new
Bolshevik Russia.

Lloyd George was also under pressure from public opinion at home to make Germany pay

President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points

8 January, 1918:
President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points

It will be our wish and purpose that the processes of peace, when they are begun,
shall be absolutely open and that they shall involve and permit henceforth no secret
understandings of any kind. The day of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by; so is
also the day of secret covenants entered into in the interest of particular governments
and likely at some unlooked-for moment to upset the peace of the world. It is this happy
fact, now clear to the view of every public man whose thoughts do not still linger in an
age that is dead and gone, which makes it possible for every nation whose purposes
are consistent with justice and the peace of the world to avow nor or at any other time
the objects it has in view.

We entered this war because violations of right had occurred which touched us to
the quick and made the life of our own people impossible unless they were corrected
and the world secure once for all against their recurrence. What we demand in this war,
therefore, is nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live
in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our
own, wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and
fair dealing by the other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression. All
the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest, and for our own part we
see very clearly that unless justice be done to others it will not be done to us. The
programme of the world's peace, therefore, is our programme; and that programme, the
only possible programme, as we see it, is this:

I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private
international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and
in the public view.

II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in
peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international
action for the enforcement of international covenants.

Ill. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of
an equality of trade conditions among all the rtations consenting to the peace and
associating themselves for its maintenance.

IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced
to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.

V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims,

based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of
sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the
equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.

VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions
affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of
the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the
independent determination of her own political development and national policy and
assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her
own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may
need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in
the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her
needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish
sympathy.
 VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without
any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free
nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the
nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government
of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and
validity of international law is forever impaired.

VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the
wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has
unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that
peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.

IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly

recognizable lines of nationality.

X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see
safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous
development.

XI. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories

restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the
several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically
established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the
political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states
should be entered into.

XII. The turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure
sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be
assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of
autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a
free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.

XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the
territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free
and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and
territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.

XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for
the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial
integrity to great and small states alike. ----7 LON
 In regard to these essential rectifications of wrong and assertions of right we feel
ourselves to be intimate partners of all the governments and peoples associated
together against the Imperialists. We cannot be separated in interest or divided in
purpose. We stand together until the end.

For such arrangements and covenants we are willing to fight and to continue to fight
until they are achieved; but only because we wish the right to prevail and desire a just
and stable peace such as can be secured only by removing the chief provocations to
war, which this programme does remove. We have no jealousy of German greatness,
and there is nothing in this programme that impairs it. We grudge her no achievement or
distinction of learning or of pacific enterprise such as have made her record very bright
and very enviable. We do not wish to injure her or to block in any way her legitimate
influence or power. We do not wish to fight her either with arms or with hostile
arrangements of trade if she is willing to associate herself with us and the other peace-
loving nations of the world in covenants of justice and law and fair dealing. We wish her
only to accept a place of equality among the peoples of the world, -- the new world in
which we now live, -- instead of a place of mastery.

3. In pairs discuss the main ideas outlined in Woodrow Wilson's 14 points. What issues
was he trying to address? Can you seen any issues or problems with implementing
these ideas?
b. Which of Wilson's points would the other peacemakers (a) agree with and (b)
disagree with?
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4. Was the Treaty of Versailles a fair and workable settlement?

• The peacemakers had to find terms quickly. It took six weeks of negotiations.
• The German government was not allowed to send representative.
• Terms were presented to the Germans to be signed. It therefore became known as
the diktat.

• Clause 231, or the 'war guilt clause' established the following:

The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility
of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and
Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of
the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies. Article 231,
Treaty of Versailles, 1919.
• Germany was to disarmed. It was forbidden to have submarines, an air force,
armoured cars, or tanks. It could keep 6 battleships and an army of 100,000 men to
provide internal security.
• The west bank of the Rhine was demilitarized and Allied army of occupation The
following points were agreed upon:
• Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France.
• The Saarland was put under the administration of the League of Nations for 15
years, after which a plebiscite was to allow the inhabitants to decide whether they
wanted to be annexed to Germany or France.
• Eupen, Moresnet, and Malmedy were to become parts of Belgium after a plebiscite
in 1920. [~~~]
• Germany as a country was split in two [see map]. Parts of Upper Silesia, Poznan,
and West Prussia given to the new Poland, creating a 'Polish Corridor' between
Germany and East Prussia. It gave Poland access to the sea.
• The German port of Danzig became a free city under the mandate of the League of
Nations.
• North Schleswig was given to Denmark after a plebiscite (South Schleswig remained
German). [s}~J
• All territory Germany claimed from Russia in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was
reassigned: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were made independent states in line
with the principle of self-determination.
• The port of Memel was to be given to Lithuania in 1922.
• Union (Anschluss) between Germany and Austria was forbidden.
• Germany's African colonies were taken away. Germany's colonies were handed
over to the League of Nations.
• The mandate system thus meant that nations who were 'looking after' Germany's
former colonies would be answerable to the League of Nations. These territories
were the 'mandates.'
• The 'war guilt' clause provided justification for Allied demands for reparations. The
Inter-Allied Reparations Commission that, in 1921, came up with the reparations
sum of £6,600 million.
• The Treaty also set down the extradition and trial of the Kaiser and other 'war
criminals'. However, the Dutch government refused to hand over the Kaiser,[s}~Jand in
the end only a few German military commanders and submarinecaptains were tried
by a German military court at Leipzig and received light sentence.

1. Consider which of the following terms were: economic, territorial, political, military or
'other'
2. In groups of 4, one representing the US, one representing France, one representing
Britain and one representing Germany evaluate the terms of the Treaty of
Versailles. You should attempt to reach a decision on whether the Treaty of Versailles
a fair and workable settlement.
Discuss the contemporary views expressed in Sources A,B and C. W hat do they reveal
about the attitude towards the Treaty of Versailles at the time?
Source A
• From John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the
Peace (Harcourt Brace, 1920), p.56.
the future life of Europe was not their concern: its means of livelihood was not
their anxiety. Their preoccupations, good and bad alike, related to frontiers and
nationalities, to the balance of power, to imperial aggrandisements, to the future
enfeeblement of a strong and dangerous enemy, to revenge, and to the shifting
by the victors of their unbearable financial burdens onto the shoulders of the
defeated.
Keynes was a British economist and chief representative at negotiations
prior to the Treaty of Versailles, although he resigned from the British
delegation.

Source B
• Speech by Lloyd George to the House of Commons, 1919 .
. . . Take the territorial terms. In so far as territories have been taken away from
Germany, it is a restoration. Alsace-Lorraine was forcibly taken from the land to
which its population were deeply attached. Is it an injustice to restore them to
their country? Schleswig-Holstein, the meanest of the Hohenzollern frauds;
robbing a small, poor, helpless country, and then retaining that land against the
wishes of the population for 50 to 60 years. I am glad the opportunity has come
for restoring Schleswig-Holstein. Poland, tom to bits to feed the carnivorous
greed of Russian, Austrian and Prussian autocracy. This Treaty has re-knit the
tom flag of Poland.

Source C
• German newspaper, Deutsche Zeitung, 1919.
• Today in the Hall of Mirrors of Versailles the disgraceful Treaty is being signed.
Do not forget it! The German people will with unceasing labour press forward to
reconquer the place among nations to which it is entitled. Then will come the
vengeance for the same of 1919.

Now consider these verdicts by historians on the Treaty of Versailles. What points do
they have in common? What evidence can you find to support each verdict?
'[The Treaty of Versailles] did not pacify Germany, still less permanently weaken her,
appearances notwithstanding, but left her scourged, humiliated and resentful' A Lentin,
Guilt at Versailles, 1984
'Severe as the Treaty of Versailles seemed to many Germanys, it should be
remembered that Germany might easily have fared much worse .. However, the
Germans as a nation were not included to count their blessings in 1919 ... most of all
they resented the moral stigma of sole war-guilt which they did not feel..To the
discerning it was clear from the beginning that the Versailles settlement would last only
as long as the victorious powers were in a position to enforce it on a bitterly resentful
people'William Carr, A History of Germany 1815 - 1945
'The fact that [the Versailles settlement] did not survive the 1920s intact stemmed .... not
so much from the terms of the peace treaties themselves but from political leaders in
the inter-war period to enforce them'. Ruth Henig, Versailles and After, 1919 - 1933

The Treaty of Versailles was the Treaty with Germany, whereas the Versailles
Settlement includes all the Treaties drawn up for the defeated powers.
1. Research and makes notes on the other Treaties which made up the Versailles
Settlement: The Treaty of St Germain [1919] with Austria, The Treaty of Trianon
[1920] with Hungary, The Treaty of Neuilly (1919] with Bulgaria, The Treaty of
Sevres [1920] with Turkey, The Treaty of Lausanne [1923] with Turkey
2.From your research, which country (or countries) appears to have been the most
harshly treated? Which country appears to have been treated most leniently? How do
these Treaties compare with the Treaty of Brest Litovsk and the Versailles Treaty? What
problems appear could result from the terms of these Treaties?
2. Research contemporary and historians' criticisms of the peace settlements in Eastern
and South-Eastern Europe.

6. How did the war affect political, social, cultural and economic
developments in the 1920s?
In groups of three, and using the material you have already explored on the terms of the
settlement, investigate one of the following post-war themes:

• Political Issue in the 1920s (Suggested case study: Germany)

• Economic issues in the 1920s (Suggested case study: Germany)
• Social changes in the 1920s [including the impact of war on the role of Women in
society] (Suggested case study: Britain)
• cultural changes in the 1920s (suggested case study: Germany or Russia)

Feedback your research to the class.