Summary of the Provisions of the
Treaty of Versailles
a) Territorial Losses:
i. Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France.
ii. The Polish Corridor. Poland was restored most of the
territory taken from it by Prussia and Russia in the eighteenth
century including a strip, or “corridor”, to the Baltic Sea
separating East Prussia from the rest of Germany. In this sense,
Germany was split in two.
iii. Mandates. Germany was compelled to surrender all of its
colonies, which were then distributed among the Allies as
“mandates”, or trust territories, held (in theory) under the
supervision and control of the League of Nations. All conquered
territories in Eastern Europe (Treaty of Brest-Litovsk) had to be
relinquished by Germany.
iv. “Anschluss”, or the unification between Austria and
Germany, was forbidden.
v. The Saar area of Germany (coal producing region in Germany)
was given to the League of Nations for 15 years, with the goal of
producing coal for France for five years.
vi. Danzig was a city in the Polish Corridor. It too was to be
administered by the League of Nations, and would act as a “free”
city; meaning any nation could unload goods there into the
European market.
b) Military Clauses:
i. The Rhineland was Demilitarized. The area of the Rhine
Valley and from the Rhine to the French frontier was to be a
permanently demilitarized zone (no Germany army). Allied
armies were to occupy the west bank of the Rhine for a period of
15 years. This was set up to act as a buffer between France and
Germany.
ii. Military Restrictions. Conscription was forbidden in
Germany and the German army was limited to 100,000 men who
had to serve for 12 years (this way, no one would volunteer!). Its
navy and air force were also severely restricted in size. The
production of submarines, planes and tanks was forbidden.
iii. The German Fleet. The fleet was surrendered to Great
Britain at Scapa Flow, Scotland.
iv. Merchant shipping. Germany gave up all of its merchant
shipping to the Allies in compensation for Allied shipping losses
during the war. In addition it had to pay large quantities of coal to
France, Belgium and Italy.
c) Reparations:
i. Article 231: The War-Guilt Clause. This clause stated that
Germany alone must accept responsibility for the start of the war.
Bluntly stated this was a mistake. The Germans were furious over
this article. The German Chancellor resigned in protest. German
sailors scuttled the German fleet being held at Scapa Flow,
Scotland. All in vain! The Allies threatened to resume hostilities,
which would have meant the military occupation of Germany.
ii. Reparations. Because the Germans were responsible for the
war (Article 231), it meant that they would be forced to pay the
allies huge sums of money to pay for the damage caused by the
war. At Versailles, no financial figure was discussed; that decision
was forwarded to a committee.
In 1921 the Reparations committee stated that Germany must pay
the allies 6.6 Billion Pounds in gold, or 33 billion American dollars
(ouch!). Also, all coal in the Saar would go to France for five years.
d) The Covenant, or Constitution, of the League of
Nations:
This was included in the Treaty, meaning that each state signing
the document would automatically be named to membership
within the League of Nations. The Germans, of course, were an
exception; they were bad.