It has been often said by the critics that the seeds of Second World War lay in the Treaty of Versailles. The treatment meted out to Germany was very harsh.
She was stripped of her armaments and deprived of her colonics, as well as of all interests and trading privileges outside her boundary. She was deprived of about six millions of her people and some of her richest mineral districts. Germany was also compelled to grant economic privileges to the Allies without any reciprocity.
The violation of Germany’s right of self-determination further added fuel to the lire and created a psychology of revenge. It was too much to except that a great nation like Germany would submit to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles for all times to come.
In fact the history of the period between the two world war can be described as the period of the infringement of the Treaty of Versailles.
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During this period some of the provisions of the treaty were allowed to lapse, some was repudiated by Germany without evoking protest from the Allies and some were violated in the teeth of opposition. Hence, there is a great truth in the statement that no other great diplomatic instrument has been modified, revised or infringed in the same way as the Treaty of Versailles.
In 1926, Part I of the treaty was amended to enable Germany to get the membership of the League of Nations. Part V of the treaty dealing with provisions relating to military, navy and air force was violated by Germany in 1935. Part VII of the treaty, dealing with the war criminals was allowed to go by default.
Part VIII, dealing with reparation, was modified by the Reparation Commission, the Dawes Committee (1924), the Young Committee (1929) and the Hoover Moratorium (1931) before it was given a decent burial by the World Economic Conference.
Part II and III dealing with the western, northern and eastern boundary of Germany were violated by Germany with the consent of the Allies. The other steps which infringed the Treaty of Versailles again and again, including promulgation of new military laws by Germany, conclusion of Naval Treaty with England in 1935, occupation of Austria by Germany in 1938, and the occupation of Bohemia and Moravia by Germany in 1939.
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Thus we find that the Treaty of Versailles was completely shattered. This was due to the fact that the treaty could satisfy neither the victors nor the vanquished. Being a patch-work it failed to satisfy both. In the second place, the failure of the treaty was due to the indifference of the Allies.
The Allies never bothered to ensure strict observance of the provisions of the treaty, which prompted Germany to violate the terms again and again. “Rigorous enforcement of the treaty might have convinced Germany not only that it had lost the war, but also that war did not pay. Once the Allies began not to enforce the treaty and to modify it, they lost all chance of reconciling Germany to its provisions and encouraged it to nullify them.”
In other words, lack of will on the part of Allies to enforce the provisions of the treaty encouraged Germany to make a national legend out of it and throw it to the wind as soon as they could.
No doubt the Treaty of Versailles failed to establish permanent peace, but it was not so much due to any inherent faults in the treaty. It was mainly due to the subsequent policy pursued by the Allied Powers and Germany.