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5 Between the World Wars, 1919-39 I. The Failure of the Treaty Approach The years between the world wars saw the greatest effort to that time to control armaments and to discourage war through treaty. The approach varied in form all the way from the dictated armament clauses in the Treaty of Versailles with Germany to the voluntary renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy under the Paris Peace Pact of 1928. The greatest practical progress in limiting armaments during the interwar years was made through naval treaties, though ultimately even those efforts failed of their purpose. The fault lay not with the treaty approach itself, or even with the terms of the treaties, but with the unwillingness of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and ImperialJapan to abide by the status quo after World War I. Their revisionist policies in the 1930s finally resulted in a global war even worse than the first World War. In June 1919 a German delegation was summoned to the Palace of Versailles outside Paris to sign, not to negotiate, a treaty of peace with Germany’s enemies in World War I. Although the Imperial German government that had waged the war had been replaced by the democratic Weimar Republic, the peace terms were no less severe for that fact. They stripped Germany of its overseas empire and a seventh of its territory in Europe. The Germans had expected the loss of Alsace-Lorraine to France, and the small territorial losses to Belgium and Denmark were tolerable, but they resented the large loss of territory in the east to the new state of Poland. In addition, the Saarland was transferred to France for fifteen years, its return subject to a local plebiscite. Under the War Guilt Clause, Germany was also saddled with a heavy reparations bill. The German Rhineland was converted into a demilitarized zone in which Germany was forbidden to station troops or build fortifications, but in which the Allies could station troops for up to fifteen years. Germany was also denied 5 Between the World Wars, 1919-39 I. The Failure of the Treaty Approach The years between the world wars saw the greatest effort to that time to control armaments and to discourage war through treaty. The approach varied in form all the way from the dictated armament clauses in the Treaty of Versailles with Germany to the voluntary renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy under the Paris Peace Pact of 1928. The greatest practical progress in limiting armaments during the interwar years was made through naval treaties, though ultimately even those efforts failed of their purpose. The fault lay not with the treaty approach itself, or even with the terms of the treaties, but with the unwillingness of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan to abide by the status quo after World War I. Their revisionist policies in the 1930S finally resulted in a global war even worse than the first World War. In June 1919 a German delegation was summoned to the Palace of Versailles outside Paris to sign, not to negotiate, a treaty of peace with Germany's enemies in World War I. Although the Imperial German government that had waged the war had been replaced by the democratic Weimar Republic, the peace terms were no less severe for that fact. They stripped Germany of its overseas empire and a seventh of its territory in Europe. The Germans had expected the loss of Alsace-Lorraine to France, and the small territorial losses to Belgium and Denmark were tolerable, but they resented the large loss of territory in the east to the new state of Poland. In addition, the Saarland was transferred to France for fifteen years, its return subject to a local plebiscite. Under the War Guilt Clause, Germany was also saddled with a heavy reparations bill. The German Rhineland was converted into a demilitarized zone in which Germany was forbidden to station troops or build fortifications, but in which the Allies could station troops for up to fifteen years. Germany was also denied Between the World Wars, 1919-39 I73 membership in the new League of Nations, founded at the Paris Peace Conference. The Treaty of Versailles placed limitations on the German armed forces of special relevance to the study of the patterns of war. The post-war German army was reduced to the status of an armbe de me‘tier(professional army) of IOO,OOO soldiers serving under long-term enlistments...

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