Why was the treaty of Versailles humiliating?

Why was the treaty of Versailles humiliating?

!. It was humiliating because the Germans were not invited to the making of the treaty. They were forced to sign it and the Weimar government did not have a choice.

2. Their land was taken away from them. This was embarrassing because when a country has a huge land, they feel like they have a lot of power. By taking their land away, you are taking away their power. Some of the land was given to French, their old enemy, which was embarrassing.

This lost land had important raw materials such as coal. The coal industry was one of Germany’s strongest source of income/revenue and that was taken away. The German troops were not allowed in the Rhineland to make the French feel safe from invasion. They also, lost overseas colonies, which made them powerless.

3. German army was reduced to 100.000 men. They were not allowed to have airforce, tanks and they only had 6 battleships and 15,000 sailors. In comparison to their enemies, this was nothing.

4. Germany had to pay war reparations. This is like compensation. When the treaty was signed, no fixed amount was set. However, in 1921, 3 years later, Germany was made to pay 6600 million Deutsche mark. Most of these compensations went to Belgium and their old enemy France. This is humiliating because the Weimar Government had to pay a large amount of which they did not even had. This had a dramatic effect on the German people as they were handing a large amount of money over to their enemies.

5. German received the blame for the war. This was humiliating because it was made to appear like their dead soldiers were not as important as the other soldiers who lost their lives in the war.

By Libin F