Treaty+of+Versailles

You have been given a role at the Treaty of Versailles. Please work with your classmates who have the same role (or alone if you are solo) to figure out what your goals are, (who do you want to punish, who do you want to reward?)

Specific questions to answer to be prepared for the reenactment: 1. Who are your allies, why? 2. Who are your enemies, why? 3. What do the people of your country want now that the War is over? 4. What are they most afraid of, why? 5. How much should Germany have to pay? 6. What to do with the land that used to be A-H, Ottoman Empire, and any disputed German lands like Alsace-Lorraine? 7. Are the other countries there going to listen to you, why or why not?

Now you need to write a brief introductory speech as your person, representing your country at The Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, France that announces your positions with the rest of the people there. Sell everyone on your country's position, this speech is a work of propaganda.

Here is a brief start for your country/leader

Great Britain Your group is led by David Lloyd George, who was the liberal Prime Minister of Great Britain. In Britain the vast majority people wanted Germany to be punished: "Make Germany Pay" and "Squeeze them until the pips squeak" were popular slogans, but Lloyd George believed that:


 * Germany should be allowed to recover.
 * France should not be allowed to take the Rhineland. Lloyd George was only prepared to make the Rhineland "demilitarized" and many Brits were still a bit suspicious of France getting too powerful.

France Your group is led by Georges Clemenceau, who was the prime minister of France; he was nicknamed "The Tiger." He wanted to make Germany pay for all of the damage that France had suffered during the four years of fighting. Also, remember that your nation has been attacked by Germany twice in the past half century. He wanted to make sure that a war like this would never happen again. He had three main demands:
 * Germany must return Alsace-Lorraine to France; this had been taken by Germany in 1871.
 * Germany must pay Reparations to France to cover the cost of rebuilding the parts of France that had been destroyed during the war (750,000 houses and 23,000 factories had been destroyed).
 * France should be allowed to take possession of the Rhineland (the area near the River Rhine); this was to stop Germany attacking France in the future.

Germany The Allies also gave Germany a new form of government based on proportional representation. It was intended to prevent Germany being taken over by a dictatorship, but it led to the creation of more than thirty political parties; none of them was big enough to form a government on its own. Germany had not been allowed to the Peace Conference and were told to accept the terms or else. Most Germans had believed that the Treaty would be lenient because of Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points. Many Germans did not believe that the German army had actually been defeated in 1918 because Germany had not been invaded. One of these people was Corporal Adolf Hitler, who had been in hospital in November 1918 recovering from gas-blindness. Like many others he came to believe that the army had been "stabbed in the back" by the "November Criminals", the politicians who had signed the Armistice which had brought the Great War to an end on 11th November 1918. Several of the clauses of the Treaty were thought to be very harsh. It was going to be almost impossible to pay the Reparations. In fact, the German government gave up after only one year, and the War Guilt Clause seemed particularly unfair. How could Germany be the only country to blame for the war? After all it had started when a Serbian shot an Austrian. It was felt that Germany had simply been made a scapegoat by the other countries for all that had happened. Germany must:
 * Accept all of the blame for the war, the "War Guilt Clause".
 * Reduce its army to 100,000 men and was not allowed to have conscription (draft).
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Reduce the navy to 6 warships and was not allowed to have any submarines.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Destroy all of its air force.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 24px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The United States <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Your delegation is led by Woodrow Wilson, the President of the United State of America. The USA had only declared war on Germany in April 1917 and it had suffered no damage whatsoever. Wilson arrived in Europe with the "Fourteen Points", which he hoped would help prevent wars in the future. The most important of these were:
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The peoples of Europe should be allowed to decide their own future; he called this "Self-determination" and he wanted an end to the empires which European countries had built up. He was not prepared to allow Italy to take the Adriatic coast.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A League of Nations should be set up to settle disputes between countries in the future.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Many politicians, especially senators who must approve (ratify) in the United States opposed the League of Nations because they fear it will tell the US what to do or where to fight. This leads them to oppose the treaty.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 24px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Italy <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Your delegation is led by Vittorio Orlando, who was the prime minister of Italy. Italy had declared war on Germany in 1915 after the Secret Treaty of London. In the treaty France and Britain had agreed that Italy would be given the Adriatic coast at the end of the war. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When Orlando arrived at Versailles he expected France and Britain to keep their promise. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Italy wanted to be given the two small areas of Istria and the South Tirol. The Adriatic coast should be made part of a new country called Yugoslavia, which included Serbia and Bosnia.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 24px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Japan <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Much had been promised to you, but you only have one thing on your mind. The natural resources of China. Awkwardly, China was also invited to the conference. link

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 24px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Republic of China <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Your goal is to not be raided by Japan for natural resources, you are a newly created democracy (1912) with very shaky standing with the people of China.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 24px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Belgium, Poland, Lithuania and Yugoslavia <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Most of the discussions were about Germany, but the leaders at the conference also tried to redraw the map of Europe. They wanted to break up the Austro-Hungarian Empire and give self-determination to the peoples of eastern and central Europe. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Give land to Belgium, France, Denmark and Poland. The land given to Poland became known as the "Polish Corridor" and it separated the main part of Germany from East Prussia. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland were formed from land lost by Russia. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Czechoslovakia and Hungary were formed out of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 24px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Kingdom of Romania link

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 24px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ireland You sent representatives in the hope of achieving self-determination and legitimizing the Republic declared after the [|Easter Rising] in 1916 but had little success. Why did no one take your demands seriously?