Versaille system

• Set of peace treaties with the Central powers,

defeated in the war:
• Germany (Weimar Republic)
• Austria-Hungary (Austrian Republic and
Hungarian Republic/Kingdom)
• Bulgaria
• Turkey
• Covenant of the League of Nations, June 1919.
Versaille Treaty 28 June 1919
with Germany
 Territorial losses
• To Belgium: Eupen-Malmedy
• To France: Alsaçe-Lorraine, Saarland (for 15
years; formally controlled by LN)
• To Poland: parts of Wielkopolska, Pomerellen
(Pomorze Gdańskie, the Polish Corridor)
• To Lithuania: Memel district
 Summary
• 65,000 km2 of territory
• 7 million people
 Plebiscite areas
• Schlesvig-Holstein (Denmark)
• Southern Prussia (Poland)
• Upper Silesia (Poland)
Rhineland
 Reparations (indemnity)
• 1921 - 132 billion gold marks (5 billion US
dollars).
American cartoon
Reparations in goods
 Military restrictions
• Landed army reduced to 100 th. Men
• Forbidden to have tanks
• Navy reduced to six battleships, no
submarines, no new craft over 10 th. Tonnes
• No airforce
 Guarantees
• The Rhineland and bridgeheads east of the
Rhine were to be occupied by Allied troops for
fifteen years
• Demilitarized area: "forbidden to maintain or
construct any fortification either on the Left
bank of the Rhine or on the Right bank to the
west of a line drawn fifty kilometers to the
East of the Rhine".
• Union with Austria forbidden
Rhineland
 Guilt clause (art. 231)
• "The Allied and Associated Governments
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."
Central Europe – in place of
Empire
• Treaty of Saint-Germain with Austria (09.1919)
• Treaty of Neuilly with Bulgaria (11.1919)
• Treaty of Trianon with Hungary (06.1920)
Dissolution of Austria-Hungary
 Creations (with territorial losses)
• Poland (Galicia)
• Czechoslovakia (Czech, Moravia, Slovakia,
Ruthenia)
• State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs joins
Kingdom of Serbia and forms: Kingdom of
Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (from 1929
Yugoslavia) – Bosnia, Herzegovina,
Montenegro, Croatia, Slavonia, Vojvodina,
Carniola (part of Styria), Dalmatia
Czechoslovakia
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
Bulgaria - losses
Hungary - losses
 Losses
• Hungary gives away Transylvania to Romania
• Austria gives Southern Tyrol (Upper Adiga) to
Italy
• Bulgaria gives Aegean coastline to Greece,
nearly all of its Macedonian territory to the
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes,
Dobruja to Romania
Greater Romania
Versaille settlement – outside
Europe
• Middle East, Africa, Far Asia – mandate system
territories previously controlled by Germany
and Ottoman Empire, now: under formal
custody of LN, adminstered by: GB, France,
Belgium, Austrialia
German colonies under LN mandate
• 1. Syria;
• 2. Lebanon;
• 3.Palestine;
• 4.Transjordan;
• 5.Mesopotamia;
• 6.British Togoland;
• 7. French Togoland;
• 8.British Cameroons;
• 9.French Cameroun;
• 10.Ruanda-Urundi;
• 11.Tanganyika;
• 12. South West Africa
Middle East
• 1914 Ottoman Empire joins Germany and
Austria-Hungary in World War I, against Britain
and France.
• Awakening force of Arab, Armenian, and Assyrian
nationalism
• The British turn to fomenting revolution in the
Ottoman domains, exploiting it
• British main ally: Sharif Hussein, the hereditary
ruler of Mecca
• Being promised independence, starts an Arab
Revolt against Ottoman rule (1916-1918)
• Idependent Saudi Arabia
• Semi-independent Iraque
Palestina question
• 19th c. – part of the Ottoman Empire
• Population: Arab speaking muslims, christians
• Late 19th. c. – Jewish imigration begins
• Antijewish, antisemitic policy of the Russian
Empire (legal restrictions, persecutions,
pogroms)
• Antisemitism in other European countries
(Germany, France)
• The growth of Jewish nationalism: the idea of
building the Jewish state - zionism
Theodore Herzl
 The first aliya
• 1878 - first modern Jewish settlements in
Palestine (Rosh Pinna, Petah Tikva).
• From 80. larger emigration starts
• TH. Herzl – creating World Zionist Organization
and plans its First Congress at Basel (1897)
Delegates on the First Zionist Congress
 British politics
• During the War drove the Turks out of the Levant
• agreed that it would honour Arab independence
if they revolted against the Ottomans
• UK and France divided up the area under the
Sykes–Picot Agreement
• Balfour Declaration of 1917, promising British
support for a Jewish "national home" in Palestine
• Palestine a British mandate
 Balfour declaration
• His Majesty's government view with favour
the establishment in Palestine of a national
home for the Jewish people, and will use their
best endeavours to facilitate the achievement
of this object, it being clearly understood that
nothing shall be done which may prejudice
the civil and religious rights of existing non-
Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights
and political status enjoyed by Jews in any
other country.