Germany was stripped of Alsace–Lorraine; French domestic opinion would brook no
plebiscite there. It also lost three small enclaves on its border with Belgium (Eupen,
Malmédy and Moresnet); the ethnically Danish slice of Schleswig, conquered in 1 8 64;
most of West Prussia, and the largely German port of Danzig; the port of Memel, also
ethnically German; and most of Upper Silesia. Perhaps 6 million ethnic Germans were
lost to the Reich. Overall, Germany was deprived of 13 per cent of its pre-war population,
26 per cent of its coal and 15 per cent of its iron ore. Wilson’s guiding principle of self-
determination of peoples was not, of course, applied in an unimpeachably even-handed
manner among all nationalities. The French claimed the rich coalmining district of the
Saar, which was wholly German, but they were thwarted by Wilson. Instead, they were
allowed to exploit the Saar coal mines and industries for fifteen years, under the authority
of the newly created League of Nations. Following that period a plebiscite would be held
to determine whether the Saarlanders wished to return to German sovereignty. To no
one’s surprise, in 1935 they voted to join the new Nazi Germany.
Germany was disarmed to the point where it could not resume the war, which was the
initial concern. Indeed, it would be incapable of defending itself even against invasion
by Poland, restored as a sovereign state by Versailles. The German Army was restricted
to 100,000 men, to include only 4,000 officers (reduced from 34,000), and the Great
General Staff was to be abolished. The army was to consist strictly of long-service regu-
lars: officers were to serve for twenty-five years, NCOs for twelve. Germany was denied
tanks, heavy artillery, military aviation, submarines and all save a token surface fleet. In
addition, it was denied the right to construct frontier fortifications. The Rhineland,
including a fifty-kilometre-wide strip on the eastern bank, was to be demilitarised in
perpetuity.
Perhaps most damaging of all for the future peace of Europe was the so-called ‘war
guilt’ clause of the Versailles Treaty, Article 231. Wilson prevented the French from
imposing an indemnity on Germany because indemnity is the penalty paid by the loser
simply for losing. But it was open season to claim reparations for the cost of the non-
military damage wrought by the armed forces of the Central Powers. The famous, or
infamous, Article 231 added financial injury to what nearly all Germans regarded as
insult. It read as follows:
The Allied and Associated Governments [a total of twenty-nine states] 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.
(Goldstein, 2002: 111)The issue of reparations was to be a running sore in international relations throughout
the 1920s, linked as it was to the issue of war guilt, the moral basis for the financial
claims. The Reparations Commission of the Allies produced a grand total claim of
132,000 million gold marks in May 1921, most of which was to be deferred, probably
indefinitely, pending a marked improvement in Germany’s ability to pay. In 1924 the
‘Dawes Plan’, devised by US Director of the Bureau of the Budget, Charles G. Dawes,
sought to stabilize the German currency after hyperinflation had rendered it worthless,
The twenty-year armistice, 1919–39 101