IGCSE History

• Home
• Introduction to IGCSE
• The Road to Affluence: USA 1917 - 1941 (A9)
  • 1917 - 1929
    • The impact of the First World War
    • Immigration
    • Henry Ford and mass production
    • Farming in the 1920s
    • The Stock Market Boom
  • 1929 - 1941
    • The Wall Street Crash
    • The Depression
    • The policies of Hoover
    • Roosevelt and the New Deal
    • Reactions to the New Deal
• International Relations 1919-1939 (A8)
  • Collective Security
    • The Versailles Settlement
    • The Foundation of the League of Nations
    • Strengths and weaknesses of the League of Nations
    • Successes and failures of the League of Nations
    • Locarno and the Kellogg-Briand Pact
  • Appeasement
    • Manchuria
    • The Disarmament Conference
    • Abyssinia
    • Hitler and the League
    • Appeasement in action
• Revolution in China 1949 - 1996 (A14)
  • 1949 - 1976
    • China under Mao
    • Reform under Liu and Deng
    • The reasons for the Cultural Revolution
    • The impact of the Cultural Revolution
    • China 1971 - 1976
  • 1976 - 1996
    • The defeat of the Gang of Four
    • China under Deng Xiaoping
    • Reforms of the economy
    • The Democracy Movement
    • China in the 1990s
• South-East Asia 1945 - 1900 (A15)
  • Indo-China
    • The end of the French Empire
    • Vietnam 1954 - 1965
    • US involvement in Vietnam
    • The unification of Vietnam
    • Laos and Cambodia
  • South-East Asia
    • The struggle for control of Malaya
    • The creation of Malaysia
    • Singapore
    • Suharto and Indonesia
    • Sukarno and Pancasila
• Conflict and Crisis is the Middle East 1946 - 1996 (A16)
  • Unit overview
  • 1946 - 1967
    • The creation of Israel
    • The impact of the war of 1948 - 1949
    • The Suez Crisis
    • Superpower involvement in the Middle East
    • The Six Day War
  • 1967 - 1996
    • International terrorism
    • The war of Yom Kippur
    • The Palestinian Liberation Organisation
    • Lebanon and the occupied territories
    • Successes and failures from Camp David to Oslo
• The First World War (B4)
  • The Schlieffen Plan
  • Deadlock on the Western Front
  • Gallipoli
  • The Somme and Passchendaele
  • The War at Sea
  • The defeat of Germany
• The USA 1917-1929 (B7)
  • The Roaring Twenties
  • Advertising and consumerism
  • New forms of entertainment
  • Prohibition
  • Gangsterism
  • Hollywood
• China under Mao Zedong 1949 - 1959 (B10)
  • The creation of the Communist State
  • Land Reform
  • Communist society
  • The First Five Year Pan
  • The 100 Flowers
  • The Great Leap Forward
• The Changing Nature of Warfare (C3)
  • Unit overview
  • Warfare at the beginning of the 20th Century
  • Land warfare
  • Sea and aerial warfare
  • Atomic and nuclear weapons
  • Warfare at the end of the 20th Century
• Links

The Versailles Settlement

The Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June. The German delegates had not been allowed to attend any of the meetings at Versailles.

When they saw the terms, they were horrified. The Treaty was heavily influenced by Clemenceau's desire to 'make Germany pay'. The German delegates considered restarting the war, but this was impossible.

The main terms of the Treaty were as follows

Land - Germany lost about 10 percent of her land. Alsace-Lorraine was given back to France. The Polish Corridor was created.

Colonies - all German colonies were taken away and were handed to Britain and France.

Armed forces - the German army was reduced to 100,000 men and conscription was banned, the navy was reduced to six ships and submarines were banned, the airforce was to be completely destroyed.

The Rhineland - this was to be demilitarised.

The Saar - this was to be occupied for fifteen years and France would be able to mine coal in it for those years.

Reparations - Germany was to pay £6,600,000,000 for the damage caused by the war.

War Guilt - Germany was to accept the blame for the war, alone.

The Treaty was the result of bargaining between the allies.

Italy was not given the Adriatic coast that had been promised by Britain and France at the Secret Treaty of London in 1915.

France was not allowed to occupy the Rhineland

Woodrow Wilson was not able to achieve freedom of the seas

Lloyd George was unable to achieve a moderate settlement.

Assignment

How might newspapers in France, Britain or Germany have reported the Treaty of Versailles, signed in June 1919? Produce an illustrated front cover of a newspaper from one of these countries. Exemplar: The Berlin Times

Essay Questions

1. What were the aims of the makers of the Treaty of Versailles?
2. Describe how the Treaty of Versailles weakened Germany:
   • Through the loss of territory,
   • Militarily,
   • Economically.
3. Why was there opposition in Germany to the Treaty of Versailles?
4. How did the ‘Big Three’ feel about the Treaty of Versailles?
5. The Peace Treaties of 1919–20 made many territorial changes in Central and Eastern Europe. Describe those changes.
6. What was ‘self-determination’, and how did the principle affect the peace treaties of 1919–1920?
7. What were ‘reparations’, and what changes were made to the Treaty of Versailles over the issue of reparations in the period 1919–1932?

• The Versailles Settlement
• The Foundation of the League of Nations
• Strengths and weakneses of the League of Nations
• Successes and failures of the League of Nations
• Locarno and the Kellogg-Briand Pact

• Manchuria
• The Disarmament Conference
• Abyssinia
• Hitler and the League
• Appeasement in action

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