Serving as the representative for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a special correspondent for THE CRISES MAGAZINE - and gathering information for his forthcoming tome on the African-Americans who served in the First World War, Dr. Dubois sailed for France in order to attend the Versailles Conference in Paris.
"We find ourselves preparing for the next war when the ink is hardly dry on the still unratified Treaty of Peace."
These were the thoughts of the Japanese rulers who were terribly surprised to find that they had quickly become the subject of much attention by their former allies, the Americans and the Commonwealth powers following the close of the First World War.
Here is a very simple list of President Wilson's Fourteen Points can be printed off of a PDF by clicking the title above.
Wilson's Fourteen Points were ignored at Versailles and the United States withdrew it's support for the historical conference in favor of two separate peace agreements made with Germany and Austria at a later date.
Click here to read more magazine articles about President Woodrow Wilson.
Read a 1936 article concerning Hitler's Versailles Treaty violations.
The historian Henry Steele Commager ranked Woodrow Wilson at number 18 insofar as his impact on the American mind is concerned - click here to understand his reasoning...
Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929) served as one of France's wartime Premieres (1917-1920). The following is an excerpt from his "letter to the American people" imploring them to share in his outrage concerning Germany's open contempt for their obligations agreed to under the Versailles Treaty. Clemenceau would die seven years later, fully convinced that another devastating war with Germany was just around the corner.
Click here if you would like to read about the 1936 Versailles Treaty violations.
A magazine review of John Maynard Keynes book, "A Revision of the Treaty" (1922). The reviewer wrote that "it lacks the prophetic fire of it's author's earlier book, "The Economic Consequences of the Peace", but continues the argument of that book:
"Mr. Keynes claims that almost everyone now has come around to his point of view. We practically all recognize, he says, the over-severity of the reparation clauses written into the Versailles Treaty."
These articles makes it clear that Clemanceau and Churchill were not the only ones who feared German duplicty in regards to the rearmament clause. Written a year apart are these two columns from
Time and
Punch insisting that the German Reichswehr had numerous weapons that were banned under the Versailles Treaty:
"My attention had often been called to persistent rumors regarding Germany's secret army. Whispers had reached me from quite reliable sources of over a million Teuton soldiers, well-officered and disciplined..."
Click here if you would like to read about the 1936 Versailles Treaty violations.
Half way through the year of 1919, editorials like this one began to appear in many places which served to inform the English-speaking world that the Germans were peacefully handing over their African colonies (as they were obliged to do in article 119 of the Versailles Treaty):
"Germany renounces in favor of the principal Allied and Associated Powers all her rights and titles over her overseas possessions."
A few choice words concerning the Treaty of Versailles by the German anti-socialist author S. Miles Bouton (born 1876):
"Such a treaty could not bring real peace to the world even if the conditions were less critical and complex. As they are, it will hasten and aggravate what the world will soon discover to be the most serious, vital, and revolutionary consequences of the war."
The quote above is an excerpt from THE NATION's review of Bouton's 1922 book, And The Kaiser Abdicates: The German Revolution, November, 1918.
Attached is the 1922 book review of Robert Lansing's (1864 – 1928) book,
Big Four, and Others of the Peace Conference
. In this, Lansing's follow-up to his earlier book,
The Peace Negotiations: A Personal Narrative
, the author
"shows us Clemenceau dominating the conference by sheer force of mind; Wilson outmaneuvered; Lloyd George clever, alert, but not very deep; and Orlando precise and lawyer like. This book confirms the popular belief that the general scheme of the treaty was worked out by the British and French delegations without material aid from the Americans. As a consequence, the American delegation lost prestige."
In light of the overwhelming hostility toward Germans, whether they come to Paris to sign a peace treaty or for other reasons, the Parisian Gendarmes thought it best to enclose their hotel with palisade-style fencing, which they hoped would serve the dual purpose of keeping them in as much as it would serve to keep hostile natives out.
A photo of the barricade illustrates the article.
One of the summer offerings of 1933 was the stage production of 'Peace Palace' by Emil Ludwig (1881 - 1948). Posted here is a review of the production along with a black and white photograph of the cast in full costume and recognizable make-up.
This 1923 German editorial by Professor Rudolf Euken (coincidentally published in THE EUKEN REVIEW) was accompanied by an anti-Versailles Treaty cartoon which attempted to rally the German working classes to join together in rebellion against the treaty.
"The so-called Peace of Versailles subjects the German people to unheard-of treatment; has injured and crippled Germany; has, with refined cruelty, deprived her of fertile territories; robbed her of sources indispensable to her existence; has heaped upon her huge burdens, and this for an indenite time - the intention being, if possible, to reduce her people to serfdom."
Click here to read another one of Rudolf Euken's post-war efforts.
Click here if you would like to read about the 1936 Versailles Treaty violations.
The attached article, written in 1928, reported on how heartily sick the Germans were at having to serve as hosts for three occupying armies as a result of a
Versailles Treaty clause that mandated the Allied military occupation until 1935. The Foreign Minister of Germany, Dr Gustav Stresemann, made several eloquent pleas to the diplomatic community insisting that there was no need for the continuing encampments before he began submitting his bitter editorials to assorted European magazines, which are discussed herein:
"Friendship between France and Germany is impossible as long as Allied troops remain in the occupation area of the Rhineland..."
When Germany's post-war government failed to remit a portion of the 33 billion dollars it owed under it's obligations agreed to in the Versailles Treaty, France lost little time deploying her army into the coal rich regions of the Ruhr Valley. This article, illustrated with cartoons and maps, offers a collection of assorted observations and editorial opinions gathered from from across Europe concerning the event:
"Premiere Poincare remarked, 'the French troops will remain in the Ruhr as long as may be necessary to assure the payment of reparations, but not a single day longer.'"
This is an interesting article that announced the Germans march into the Rhineland as well as the island of Hegoland. The journalist also listed various other Versailles Treaty infractions.
Click here to read an additional article concerning the Versailles Treaty violations.
The foreign correspondent for
Pathfinder Magazine filed this brief report about the goings-on in Germany on June 30, 1930, when the last Allied regiments had completed their occupation duties mandated under the Treaty of Versailles and withdrew to their own borders:
"For the most part the German population waited patiently until the last uniformed Frenchman had entrained and then they raised the German flags, [and] began to sing 'Deutschland Ueber Alles'..."
"President Hindenburg issued a proclamation saying in part:
'After long years of hardships and waiting, the demand of all Germans was today fulfilled. Loyalty to her fatherland, patient perseverance and common sacrifices have restored to the occupied territory the highest possession of every people - freedom.'"
"[On January 16, 1920] the Peace Conference at Paris summoned Holland to yield the ex-Kaiser of Germany for trial... In its reply, issued January 23, Holland refused."
The conferees also demanded that Germany hand over some 850 German citizens to stand trial for numerous infractions; needless to say, nothing came of the request.
"There aren't many Yanks in Turkey but an American naval force of eight destroyers is being kept in Turkish waters to protect American interests and to assist the British, French and Italian navies before Constantinople to induce compliance by Turkey with the terms of the peace treaty and to serve as a warning to cease her practices against the Armenians in Asia Minor."
By the early Thirties the anointed of Europe realized that there would be no economic recovery for the continent if Germany was not a part of it. With this in mind, a delegation convened in Lausanne, Switzerland where it was decided by representatives from France, Britain and Germany that the reparation payments imposed upon the defeated countries by the Treaty of Versailles would be suspended. Hitler's followers were of the mind that Germany should not have signed the agreement unless the war-guilt clause was removed from the Versailles Treaty. This article addresses the general political climate in Germany as 1932 came to a close.
When Capitol Hill rejected the Versailles Treaty in 1919, Paris and London found themselves having to rely upon each other in ways they weren't expecting.
"The war that Germany began and lost cost the Allies, according to a recent estimate, the stupendous total of $177,000,000,000. The Reparations Commission has named a principal sum of about $32,000,000,000 as the damages for which reparations by Germany is due under the Treaty of Versailles. The Supreme Council of the Allies, sitting at Paris in January, placed the amount to be paid by Germany at a present value of $21,000,000,000, which when paid with interest and in installments covering forty-two years, would amount to about $55,000,000,000."
It was easy for the French and Belgians to send their Armies into Germany's Ruhr Valley in February of 1923 - not so easy getting them out. Attached are two news articles that reported on the assorted European officials who were applying all their brainpower to the problem.
