Transcription
Hello, welcome back to Western Civilization 102 and our lecture series. In our last lecture, you learned about World War I, and uh, of course, that will not be the end of world war in American and European Western history and American history as well. So now we will turn our attention to in between the wars, in between World War I and World War II, with our lecture titled for this class, Peace, Recovery, and the Great Depression.
Now, after World War I, um, we are still going to see, uh, in Europe, a lot of, you know, there was a lot of fear that Germany will grow too strong again. You know, France wanted to make sure that their borders were protected because they didn't want to see this happening again because, of course, Germany had invaded, and actually, there's battles fought on French soil during World War I. And we will also see, of course, with the Treaty of Versailles, there's a lot of compensation going on. So the map in Europe, the European continent, the map will change. Countries will be created, borders will be extended as a result of the end of World War I and the Treaty of Versailles. We'll see that during the, you know, in between the wars, that we will have a lot of inflation, which of course, you know, that there will be a Great Depression that occurs, not just in the United States, but in Europe as well. And Germany will definitely suffer. Germany is actually actually a republic right now, and uh, because of this depression that will will devastate Germany, the people obviously are not very happy and content, and this will help with the rise of a man named Adolf Hitler, which you'll learn more about in upcoming lectures.
Now, Germany was included in the League of Nations. The League of Nations had been created after World War I, and it was supposed to be a peacekeeping organization, and the purpose was to help prevent another World War. Obviously, it did not fulfill its purpose, but Germany had been included in a League of Nations. The United States, just for your information, was never part of, officially part of the League of Nations because we did not ratify the treaty, um, hoping, of course, that, you know, having Germany included will help prevent a future war. There was also what's called the Kellogg-Briand Pact, where countries would sign it and pledge to renounce war as an instrument of national policy. Well, that's great, but what if someone violated this, um, and what would we do? What would happen? There were no plans for a contingency.
As you'll find out as we lead up into World War II, of course, you know, in 1929, the stock market crashed in in the U.S. The Great Depression affecting Europe. There were soup lines in Berlin, there were bread lines in Paris. Um, it was, it was just not, the economy was just awful. Italy, of course, had always been a poor country, and Italy had been on the side of the Allies in World War I, but we will see Italy fall to a dictatorship. And uh, Italy was hurt badly by the war as far as the men killed, their economy was bad, and Italy had felt cheated during the peace after World War I. They felt like they had not received enough compensation for their part in the victory of the Allies. So we'll see in future lectures, a man named Mussolini will start to rise to power in Italy, of course, leading into World War II.
In the Soviet Union, we know that the Soviet Union had experienced a revolution and during World War I, and Stalin, Lenin comes into power. And so we now know, of course, that the Soviet Union is communist, and we'll find out, of course, what's happening along with the Soviet Union as we get closer to World War II as well. And of course, Germany, I'd mentioned the rise of Adolf Hitler, and we'll hear a lot more about Adolf Hitler as we go into our future lectures. Um, so we see that a lot of these European countries are falling to totalitarianism, which is a topic of an upcoming lecture. Um, and we'll also notice, of course, that the United States will try and remain isolated again. The United States had, uh, had loaned a lot of money to the Allies during World War I, and obviously, with the Great Depression, they weren't able to pay us back. That whole system of paying back the loans will collapse during between World War I and World War II. And so we'll see that leading up to World War II, the United States isn't as apt and as as excited to lend money. So as we go through our lectures, you'll find out how the United States will help the Allies before we actually get involved in the war without actually loaning money. So let's learn more about peace, recovery, and the Great Depression.
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Well, as the war continued on, grinding out its thousands of casualties a day in the trenches, the strain of the war began to take its toll on all the powers fighting the war. So that beginning in 1917, a number of the powers fighting in the war began to collapse. Still first with what's happening in the West. The Western Allies, in the West, major allies, the two major allies, the British and the French, they began to suffer from what we would call nervous breakdowns. In the first place, France damn near collapsed altogether in the late spring of 1917. In April, May 1917, following one disastrous suicidal offensive after another, French troops began a mutiny. The mutiny lasted for approximately one month, and it appeared that the French army might collapse altogether. However, in the end, the mutiny was brought under control. Discipline was restored, and discipline in the French army was restored in the traditional ways, through imprisonment, through court-martials, and a handful of firing squads. Discipline was restored, but morale never was. So that effectively, from this point on, the French army more or less kind of just hangs on.
In the second place, with respect to Great Britain, Great Britain was forced to deal with a very significant internal domestic problem, specifically Easter 1916. The British had to deal with the uprising of the Irish nationalists in Dublin, a major Irish rebellion, Easter 1916. Well, generally speaking, the outbreak of this rebellion compelled the British to do what they do better than anyone else: kill Irishmen. Indeed, the rebellion, this Irish rebellion, and the savagery with which the British put it down, intensified resentments, it intensified hatreds between the British and the Irish, and these resentments will lead after World War I, in 1919, it'll lead to a Civil War in Ireland, a Civil War which will ultimately result by 1923 in the permanent division of Ireland between the Republic of Ireland and what is called still Northern Ireland.
The only good news for the two Western allies in 1917 was the entry into the war, finally, of the United States. For much of the war, the United States under President Woodrow Wilson had managed to remain neutral. However, by early 1917, the United States is finally entering the war, and it is propelled into the war, generally speaking, by three events. In the first place, in late January of 1917, Germany announced that all ships caught within a very specific zone around the British Isles, any ship, whether neutral or belligerent, caught within this zone would be sunk instantly without warning. Ships in the zone would be torpedoed by German submarines. This German strategy was referred to as unrestricted submarine warfare.
Secondly, in early March of 1917, American newspapers began printing stories about something called the Zimmerman Telegram. Now, this is a Roman telegram, was a telegram from Arthur Zimmerman, who was the German foreign minister, and it was a telegram to the German representative in Mexico, and in this telegram, Arthur Zimmerman essentially proposed an alliance between Germany and Mexico, but largely in the event that the United States would get into the war, since early 1917 is starting to look like the U.S. will be getting in soon. So Zimmerman proposes an alliance between Germany and Mexico, and in this proposal of an alliance, among other things, Zimmerman proposed that in return for germ, sorry, in return for Mexican assistance to Germany, which is to say, maybe a little bit of a military foray into American territory in the southern border, in return to Mexico for their assistance against the United States, Germany promised to help Mexico recover territory lost by Mexico back in the 1830s and 40s to the United States. In other words, the Zimmerman Telegram essentially proposed that Germany would help Mexico recover Texas and New Mexico and Arizona.
In the third place, the Russian Revolution, and specifically the spring revolution in Russia in March 1917. The government of the Czar Nicholas II was overthrown, and it was replaced by a new government which was established along constitutional and democratic lines. Well, this March Revolution was probably the critical point for Woodrow Wilson. Indeed, up until 1917, Wilson could always justify the United States fighting in the war if they were fighting alongside Great Britain and France. Essentially, Wilson's line of thinking is this: he could always justify the United States fighting alongside of Britain, which is democratic, and France, which is democratic, three democracies side by side. However, Wilson could never justify the United States fighting alongside of Russia, which had an autocratic government, completely non-democratic. So Wilson could never justify the democratic United States fighting alongside autocratic Russia. But now, with this revolution in March 1917 and Russia beginning to become a constitutional democratic state, for Wilson, the ideological lineup is a lot more to his liking. So Wilson sees all the democracies on one side, all the bad guys on the other. Consequently, long story short, on the 6th of April 1917, the United States declared war on Germany. Although, as it will turn out, it will take the Americans about a year to get forces into the trenches in any kind of significant way.
In the meantime, let's turn our attention to the East. What's happening in the Eastern states? Well, the Great Eastern Empires are beginning to collapse altogether, beginning in 1917. The first Great Eastern Empire is Russia. Russia falls in 1917, 1918, and the government of Russia began to collapse primarily because of the Russian Revolution. Now, there were two Russian revolutions, and as we just pointed out, there was a first revolution in the spring, in which, again, as we've noted, uh, Czar Nicholas II was overthrown and was replaced by a new provisional government organized on constitutional lines. Well, with the overthrow of the Czar, the British and the French became extremely nervous that Russia was going to drop out of the war. Well, the new Russian government gave assurances to the British and the French that they were going to stay in, they weren't going to abandon their allies, and to show that they weren't kidding, to show their good faith, in July of 1917, the new Russian government launched a massive offensive against German and Austrian lines in the area of Galicia. However, this offensive was so awful, it was just so terrible, the soldiers, for the Russian soldiers, literally dropped their weapons, began abandoning the army, they began deserting in droves. The whole Russian offensive collapsed, completely collapsed into chaos.
Well, as a result of this disastrous offensive, the political situation in Russia became increasingly confused, increasingly chaotic, until November 1917. November 1917, we get a second Russian Revolution, and in this second Russian Revolution, political power was seized by a man named Lenin, Vladimir Lenin, and his political party called Bolsheviks. And the Bolsheviks began the process of establishing a communist government in Russia. Well, the first thing they did, one of the very first things they did, this comes in March of 1918, the Bolsheviks signed a peace treaty with Germany, and the treaty is called the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. It takes Russia out of the war, March 1918. However, this did not lead to peace in Russia. Far from it, the conclusion of peace with Germany triggered almost immediately the outbreak of civil war in Russia, the famous Russian Civil War. And this civil war was fought between, on one side, the anti-revolutionary, anti-Bolshevik forces, which were called the Whites, and on the other side were the Bolsheviks, who were known as the Reds. Long story short, over the course of the next two years, from 1918 to 1920, the Bolshevik forces, generally called the Red Army, Bolshevik forces decisively defeated the White forces, and the result will be the establishment of a communist government called the Soviet Union, which will dominate much of European history for much of the 20th century.
The next Great Eastern Empire to collapse is the Ottoman Empire. And the Ottoman Empire, this is a government, this is a system that had been in existence since the late 13th, early 14th centuries. Well, beginning in the 1600s, this is a state that began to collapse, began to disintegrate. So that when war broke out in 1914, the Turks decided to get into the war as the only way to save the empire from completely collapsing altogether. So in the fall of 1914, the Turks decided to enter the war on the side they believed was going to win, and they entered the war as allies of Germany. Oops, as they say in nuclear science. Uh, by 1918, it was clear that Germany was going to lose the war. So that on the 30th of October 1918, the Ottoman Empire surrendered. The Turks surrendered, 30th of October.
Well, the primary result, this is the only reason we're talking about it, the primary result of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire was the emergence of the modern Middle East. The Middle East we have come to know and love. And the modern Middle East essentially emerged on two levels. In the first place, we get a whole bunch of new states. New states began to emerge out of the Ottoman Empire. Indeed, the Ottoman Empire was broken up into several individual states. The biggest and most important, at least in 1918, is Turkey. However, ultimately, we see the emergence of other independent states such as Syria and Jordan and Lebanon and Iraq. So on one hand, we get new states. But on the other hand, we also get new problems. Problems that are really, really big problems, problems that will never be resolved. And let's just mention one of them. On November 2nd, 1917, the British government issued something called the Balfour Declaration. This Balfour Declaration was a statement by the British government in which the British announced its support for the establishment in Palestine of a national homeland for the Jewish people, the Jewish people of of Europe. And largely as a result of this Balfour Declaration, thousands and thousands of Jews from Europe began to migrate into Palestine almost immediately following the war. Problem, however, is that this British promise in the Balfour Declaration completely contradicted another promise made again by the British to the Arabs back in 1916, a promise of British support for the establishment of an Arab Empire which would consist in part of Palestine. The result of these contradictory promises, the result was the beginning almost immediately of hatred and throat-cutting between Arabs and Jews in Palestine, which continues to this very minute.
The third empire, the third Great Eastern Empire to collapse at the end of the war was Austria, Austria-Hungary, the old Habsburg Empire, an empire which had been in existence since the 13th century. Well, by October 1918, the Emperor of Austria is a guy by the name of Charles I. By October 1918, he is convinced that the end is upon us. He was absolutely convinced that the only way to prevent Austria from completely collapsing, since it was obvious we're going to lose the war, the only way to prevent the collapse of Austria, to hold the empire together, was to create for all practical purposes a federal state in which each of those various national groups would effectively create individual state governments inside a larger federal union. It's kind of like the United States, the United States of Austria, if you will. Anyway, what he did was to call for all these various national groups to begin meeting in their own little assemblies, effectively for the purpose of writing state constitutions. Well, what in fact began to happen is that these national groups, rather than writing state constitutions for inclusion in a larger federal union with the Habsburgs, instead they began declaring their own independence. So that in late October 1918, a group called the Czechs, a group called the Slovaks, declared independence, and they established the state of Czechoslovakia. About a week later, in early November 1918, Hungary declared its independence. Around the same time, within a day, Poland, the Poles declared their own independence, and within a couple of days of that, a confederation of Southern Slavs declared their independence. A small group of Southern Slavs, including the Serbs and the Croatians and the Albanians, they declared their independence, and because the word in Serbo, in the Serbo-Croatian language, because that word for South is Yugo, the new state becomes known as Yugoslavia.
Well, by this point, late October, early November 1918, Charles understands that there is no longer any hope. The war is lost, and his plan is falling apart. Consequently, on November 3rd, 1918, Charles signs an armistice with the Allies. Now, an armistice technically is a ceasefire, but it is really fundamentally surrender. So that on November 3rd, 1918, Austria surrenders, and therefore the Habsburg state, the Austro-Hungarian state, is effectively out of the war. About a week later, on the 12th of November, Charles I abdicated his throne, which effectively brings to an end the Habsburg monarchy once and for all. The very next day, 13th of November, Austria was declared an independent republic. So that the result of all this, by the end of 1918, the old Austrian Empire, the old Habsburg Empire, had been replaced by the new states of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, independent Hungary, Hungary, and independent Austria.
Well, the collapse of these Eastern Empires had the most significant impact. It had the most important impact on Germany. Indeed, when Russia dropped out of the war, when they signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany, what this meant for Germany was that the Germans could transfer all of their troops who had been fighting in the East. They could transfer all the way to the West. Indeed, in the spring of 1918, the Germans set out to launch one final desperate, all-out offensive, one more last gasp effort to win the war once and for all. Their objective was primarily to overwhelm the British and French in one massive offensive with all these new troops, and they got to do it right now, March 1918. They got to do it right now. Time is of the essence. Why is time of the essence? Well, because American troops are beginning to trickle in in bigger and bigger numbers. Therefore, but the Germans are thinking, we got to launch this one final desperate offensive in late March 1918 that they hoped would destroy the French and the British, they hoped would destroy the Allies before the United States could show up in full strength.
Well, the offensive is launched on the 21st of March 1918. This is the great spring offensive, and initially, it was a massive success. There were stops, there were restarts, stops again, restarts again, but for all practical purposes, Germany overwhelmed the British and French. And so for the first time in the war, spring of 1918, with this massive force, the Germans broke through the Allied trenches. They broke through the Allied trenches. So that by late May, the Germans are pushing forward, the French and British and the few American troops that are increasingly in the lines, they're pulling back. So that by late May, the Germans are within 60 miles of Paris. However, in spite of this success, by early June, early June of 1918, the German offensive ran out of steam. It ran out of momentum. They lost the big Mo, in the words of the great American philosopher John Madden. And this was due primarily to two factors. In the first place, the Germans began to slow down. The Germans began to collapse due to German exhaustion, due to German mistakes, due to the fact that German soldiers increasingly had had enough. So that German soldiers are beginning to desert in greater and greater numbers. But in the second place, the Allies, the British and the French, the Allies fought with much greater energy, they fought with much greater enthusiasm. In part, this was due to new tactics, but more important, it was also due to the fact that the Allied lines are rapidly filling up with fresh meat, young American soldiers, enthusiastic, eager, energetic, excited, and other adjectives that begin with the letter E as well. Indeed, American troops began arriving in fall of 1917, but they were kept out of the heavy fighting until early summer of 1918, and even then, they were used only sparingly. It was not until the late part of this great German offensive that American troops were used in any kind of significant number.
However, point is, the Allies, now bolstered by this infusion of American energy and this infusion of American enthusiasm, the Allies in the middle of July 1918, the Allies launched a counter-offensive of their own. And this was a counter-offensive that was so successful, so powerful, that by September 1918, the Allies began to push the Germans backwards and ultimately out of France altogether. In light of this, late September, early October 1918, the German High Command sat down with the Kaiser, a guy named Wilhelm II, and they told the Kaiser, Germany can no longer win the war. They told the Kaiser, Germany cannot win. And they also stressed to the Kaiser that ultimately a peace conference is coming, and they told the Kaiser, we, the Germans, are gonna get hammered. We're going to be blamed for it all. We're going to be treated with tremendous vindictiveness, tremendous harshness, unless we change the government. Indeed, German High Command believed that Germany would get a much better deal. They believed that Germany would be treated with far greater leniency if they change the government to a democratic republic. Therefore, in early November, they forced the Kaiser to institute a Republican government.
Well, very quickly, very things begin to move very, very quickly. November 9th, the Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicates, steps down. And two days later, on the 11th of November 1918, German representatives signed an armistice with the Allies, 5 o'clock in the morning in a little railway car in a forest of Compiègne, slightly outside of Paris. Signed it 5 o'clock, and it was to go into effect in six hours. So that at 11 AM on the 11th of November 1918, the war in the West is officially over.
And so, with the end of the war, the end of the First World War, the obvious question becomes, now what? What do we do now? How do we rebuild Europe? How do we rebuild governments? How do we rebuild economies? How do we rebuild societies? In other words, how do we recover from this utter catastrophe? Well, in order to answer that question, a conference was held in the city of Paris. It met from January to June of 1919. All of the victorious powers, all the victorious states were present, of course, but none of the defeated powers. So the first thing to understand is that this is a conference of the winners. However, all of the important business, all the important discussions, all the important decisions were conducted and will be made by the leaders of the four states which contributed the most to winning the war. This group of men called the Big Four, the leaders of the four states that contributed the most to defeating the Germans. And each of these guys came to the conference with his own particular specific agenda.
So, Italy. Italy was represented by its prime minister, a guy whose name was Vittorio Orlando. And in 1919, Orlando came to the Paris Peace Conference with a very clear idea of what the war had done to Italy. Italy was ruined. Italy was left in ruins by the war, not so much physically, but economically. Indeed, its currency was essentially worthless. There was high inflation, there was high unemployment, and almost as soon as the shooting started, ships began leaving Naples and Sicily and headed for New York City, they're headed for New Orleans. Indeed, it was considered by everyone that there was not going to be much future back home. Well, in Orlando's opinion, the democratic government in Italy would not survive unless Italy received enough compensation to justify all the sacrifices made during the war. Therefore, Orlando, Italy, they came to the conference with one principal objective: compensation. Whether that was material compensation, whether that was money compensation, was pretty much irrelevant. What Orlando wanted, what most Italians wanted, was land. They wanted territorial compensation, and primarily territory from Austria.
The second member of the Big Four was the representative of France, and France was represented by its prime minister, Georges Clemenceau. Clemenceau, in 1919, he's a fairly old guy, not in very good health, not much longer to live. He was cynical, he was unpleasant, he had a sharp tongue, crotchety might be a pretty good word, and he basically hated everyone. Well, in Clemenceau's way of thinking, France had lost the war. They had been on the winning side, that was true, but France, as he saw it, had lost. Consider these points: the French army by 1919 was completely in ruins. Furthermore, casualties had been staggering, and on top of that, much of the war in the West had been fought largely on French soil. So even though France is on the winning side, Clemenceau thinks we've lost. Therefore, what all this means for Clemenceau is that France can't fight again for a hell of a long time. Therefore, for Clemenceau, what France needs is about 50 years of peace and security. 50 years, that's about what he anticipates would be necessary to rebuild the strength of France. Well, the big question, most important question, how are we going to get 50 years of peace and security? Well, Clemenceau, it was very clear, we're going to get 50 years of peace and security by sticking it to the Germans. Indeed, remember this, twice in his lifetime, and this is the opinion taken by most Frenchmen, twice in his lifetime, France had been invaded, its life, its very life imperiled by Germany. Well, now the tables are turned, and France must take full advantage. He believed, and of course, most Frenchmen remembered the Treaty of Frankfurt back in 1871, which had been so harsh and vindictive on the part of Germany toward France. Therefore, France must take its revenge. Consequently, Clemenceau comes to the Paris Peace Conference with one major objective: security for France, security for France, and security for France by sticking it to the Germans, by making sure the Germans are so weak they'll never be able to threaten France again.
Great Britain, the third member of the Big Four. Great Britain was led by its prime minister, it's a guy by the name of David Lloyd George. And like the others, Lloyd George came to the Paris Peace Conference with one principal objective. Britain wants to restore its international power, its international status. And for all practical purposes, this meant two things. First of all, Britain wanted to reduce the size and the power of the German Navy. And secondly, Britain needed economic recovery. In other words, they needed a recovery of the balance of trade, they needed a restoration of markets, a revitalization of the currency, and so on and so forth. Britain needed economic recovery.
And finally, the fourth member of the Big Four was the President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson. And like the others, Wilson came to Paris with one single objective, but his objective was a little bit broader, a little bit more ambitious. He came to Paris with a plan to achieve world peace. He came with a vision of achieving world peace and world harmony, and it was laid out in a plan that he announced in a major speech in early 1918. His plan was called the Fourteen Points, literally a list of 14 things that he believed essential to world peace. We're going to mention the three most important priorities for Wilson. First of all, Wilson's first priority was that all the new states of Europe be established as democracies. A bunch of new states are beginning to pop up in Eastern Central Europe, and he wants to make sure they are established as democracies on the grounds that once the state is democratic, all will be well, it'll be easier to fix problems. His second priority was that these new states be created on the principle of what he called national self-determination. National self-determination, this is a fancy word for nationalism, effectively. In other words, all these various national groups like the Poles, like the Czechs, like the Romanians, like the Hungarians, he believed that they all should have their own state, their own political state. Third, however, and his most important priority, his top priority, was the creation of a permanent peacekeeping institution, an institution called the League of Nations. He envisioned the League of Nations as an organization where its member states could send representatives, so that the various states could periodically sit down together, assemble together, meet together, and talk about problems, talk about crises, try to resolve these problems before they all exploded into another World War. So Wilson comes to Paris with the goal of essentially redrawing a new world order, creating a new world order based on the Fourteen Points.
Well, over the spring and early summer, late spring of 1919, the Big Four managed to hammer out a fairly comprehensive peace settlement. And the settlement, in fact, consisted of a series of treaties, five separate treaties signed between the Allies on one side and one of the defeated powers on the other. So that there were separate treaties for Austria, there was a separate treaty for Hungary, a separate treaty with Bulgaria, a separate treaty with Turkey, and the most important treaty, which we'll get back to in just a few moments, the treaty with Germany. For the most part, the peace agreements reflected the most important priorities of Woodrow Wilson. So, in the first place, all of the new states in Eastern Europe were in fact established as democracies. So that they all wrote constitutions, they all established multiple political parties, they all began to hold free elections. Secondly, the new states of Eastern Europe were established along the lines of national self-determination. We've already mentioned states had emerged out of Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and so on. But out of Russia, there emerged a handful of states in the Baltic regions. So you get the emergence of Finland, you get the emergence of Estonia, the emergence of Latvia, the emergence of Lithuania. And thirdly, a League of Nations was indeed established as a permanent international peacekeeping institution, which would be designed again to prevent the outbreak of a full-scale war.
Well, on paper, all this left looked pretty good. It usually does on paper. However, there were considerable problems with all these things, and again, let's just mention a few things here. First of all, democracy, democracy, democratic government in Eastern Europe did not work very well. It's always important to remember this point in history, that democracy is principally an American and Western European system of government, which is to say, in Eastern Europe, where the only tradition, the only political tradition was monarchy, democracy was extremely unknown, it was very unfamiliar. And so there were the usual problems that we encounter: confusion, corruption, inefficiency. But in Eastern Europe, where this stuff was quite unfamiliar, the democratic governments became increasingly unpopular. But most important, the democratic governments of Eastern Europe, the new democratic governments of Eastern Europe, found it almost impossible to deal with the multitude of economic problems in the years after the war. So that rightly or wrongly, these democratic governments took the blame for all the economic and social problems post-war. The result, democratic government became very unpopular to the point that by the 1930s, most of these democratic governments had been replaced by more authoritarian governments.
Secondly, the idea of national self-determination was also a source of problems, and largely because, as usual with Eastern Europe, there were simply too many national groups for each of them to have their own state. The result was that in some states, different nationalities were mixed together. They were just as intermixed as before. So that one great example, the state of Czechoslovakia, a state established by the Czechs and the Slovaks, but there were plenty of Hungarians, there were plenty of Ukrainians, and most important for future developments, plenty of Germans in the extreme western part of the state in an area called Sudetenland. Keep that in mind for the future.
And thirdly, the League of Nations also had a whole bunch of problems. The most important of which was that the three states, the three most powerful states in 1919, did not join. First of all, the United States. The United States, whose leader pushed the hardest for the League of Nations, didn't join. And the reason the United States didn't join is because the United States Senate voted against the treaties. Why did the U.S. Senate vote against the treaties? Well, there are fundamentally two reasons. First of all, good old partisan politics. Republicans dominated the Senate, and many of them voted against the treaties as a vote against Woodrow Wilson, a Democratic president. And secondly, and more to the point, many members of the Senate of both parties wanted to return to a more traditional American foreign policy orientation of isolation, keep out of the affairs of Western Europe. So the United States didn't join. Furthermore, Germany won't be allowed to join because, as we're about to see, Germany will be blamed for the entire World War, so they won't be allowed to join until 1926. And Russia, at this very moment, is still engaged in a civil war, and everybody is much more fearful of communism, so they're all hoping that until the situation settles down and the communists are finally defeated, Russia won't be allowed to join. Ultimately, Russia will not join until 1934.
Well, beyond all this, the most important question, the delegates at the Paris Peace Conference, what do we do about Germany? As you'll recall, we just mentioned a few moments ago, early October 1918, the German High Command believed that Germany would be able to achieve a much more lenient peace. They would be treated a lot less harshly, a lot more leniently, without much damage, if it established a democratic government. And the reason they believed this is because of the Fourteen Points. Indeed, it was fairly clear, fairly early, that Woodrow Wilson, the President of the United States, was going to play a significant role at the peace conference, and it was also clear that Wilson was going to play a significant role in the writing of the peace treaty. Therefore, German political leadership, starting with the Chancellor, began writing to Wilson in the fall of 1918, and they asked Wilson to help establish peace on the basis of the Fourteen Points. Effectively, the Germans asked Wilson to serve as an intermediary between the Germans and the other great Allied leaders to, uh, to establish a peace on the basis of the Fourteen Points, which was a fairly idealistic, fairly utopian-looking vision of of peace.
Well, after about a month of negotiations, the other Allied powers agreed. The other Allied states effectively agreed to accept the Fourteen Points as the basis of peace with Germany, although with a few conditions. So effectively, the Germans were promised a peace treaty, a fair and moderate and reasonable peace treaty, to be written along the lines of the Fourteen Points. However, the peace treaty that ultimately is drafted was a treaty that was exceptionally harsh, exceptionally vindictive, and clearly not in the spirit of the Fourteen Points. The treaty, as drafted by the Allies, contained three major sets of provisions: territorial, military, and economic. All right, let's deal with each.
Under the territorial provisions of the treaty, Germany was forced to surrender approximately 10 to 15 percent of their territory. Now, let's make that 13 to 15 percent of their territory. So that German territories in the West, which had been taken from France in 1871, German territories in the West are given back to France. German territories in the North were given to Denmark. German territories in the East were given to Poland. So territorially speaking, Germany loses about 13 to 15 percent of their land.
The military provisions, this is second. Under the military provisions of the treaty, Germany was effectively disarmed. So that its army was reduced in size, its navy was significantly reduced in size, the German general staff was dissolved, and Germany was allowed no offensive weapons. At the same time, there is another point that could fit into either the territorial or to the military provisions. Let's deal with it here. The Rhine River Valley. This is the Rhineland, and this is territory between the Rhine River and the border of Germany and France. And so effectively, we're talking about German territory, German soil. Well, this Rhine River Valley, the Rhineland, was to be completely demilitarized, which is to say, Germany was forbidden to keep any German troops in the Rhineland. Germany was forbidden to maintain any fortifications in the Rhineland. Germany was forced, or was compelled, no offensive weapons in the Rhineland. Indeed, this is German soil, no troops, no fortifications, no offensive weapons. Furthermore, the Rhineland was also to be occupied by the Allied powers for 15 years, and it was to be occupied largely as a buffer zone between France and Germany.
And finally, third, the economic provisions. The French demanded that Germany pay for war damages, for all war damages. Therefore, the Allies demanded that Germany pay reparations. Well, this is quite an outrageous demand, at least a lot of people thought so. In order to justify this demand for war reparations, to pay for all the war damages, to justify that demand, the Allies inserted into this peace treaty a clause, and the clause was called Article 231. The clause, Article 231, placed the blame for the entire war on the shoulders of Germany. And for that reason, Article 231 is better known as the War Guilt Clause. For right now, the Paris Peace Conference, there is no agreement as to the final sum of reparations. Consequently, that will be left up to a reparations commission, which will meet for about two years, three years, and ultimately submit a proposal in 1921, a sum of 33 to 34 billion dollars, which will be an outrageous sum beyond the capacity of Germany to pay. Anyway, for right now, for right now, the terms of the treaty were written up, and they were submitted to the Germans on the 7th of May 1919. German representatives were handed this treaty, they read it, and they couldn't believe it. They were absolutely appalled, they were horrified. Indeed, this treaty was nowhere near the spirit of the Fourteen Points as they had been promised. Therefore, German delegates refused to sign it. For the next several weeks, the Germans delayed, they complained, they had to consult with their superiors back home in Berlin, they protested, they made counter-proposals. For a handful of weeks, the Germans kept from signing the treaty.
Well, in the middle of June 1919, the French threatened to mobilize. By God, that got people's attention pretty quick. Finally, German officials concluded they had no choice but to sign this treaty. However, they wanted to make a point that they thought this treaty unfair, they thought this treaty unjust. And so to sign the treaty on behalf of Germany, the Germans found two very obscure politicians, you know, nobody had ever heard of, to go and sign the treaty. In this kind of case, you'd think that in most cases, states would send their prime minister or their foreign minister or some high-ranking official. But the Germans found two very obscure guys that nobody had ever heard of. That was their way of saying, this is unjust. Anyway, the Allies also wanted to make a point as well, and so they forced the Germans to wait for a couple of weeks to sign the treaty, and they forced them to sign the treaty on June 28th, 1919, five years to the day that the Archduke was assassinated. In a way, it was the Allies saying, you guys might not have pulled the trigger, but deep down, you were orchestrating it, you were behind it. Furthermore, the Germans were forced to sign this treaty in the Palace of Versailles. That's why the treaty is called, by the way, the Treaty of Versailles. They were forced to sign in the Palace of Versailles, Louis XIV's great palace, and they were forced to sign in the Hall of Mirrors. That was symbolic because that very room, that very palace, is where the German Empire was created back in 1871. Back in 1871, the Germans deliberately chose the Hall of Mirrors, the Palace of Versailles, as a way of humiliating the French. Well, now the French are giving it right back. The Germans signed the treaty, they were brought into a room, they were not allowed to sit, they were given a pen and told, sign here. They signed, they walked out. But ultimately, the Germans began to argue, this will guarantee another war. The Americans said, we know, we know that it will cause another war, but the Americans, and ultimately the British, they tended to believe that a little bit later, maybe when tempers settled down, when passions cooled off a bit, they hoped that this treaty might be amended. Count Orlando went home to Italy with this treaty, and he privately told friends, the Italian government will never survive this treaty. Within three years, by 1922, the Italian government was under the control of the guy named Benito Mussolini. David Lloyd George of Great Britain was also pessimistic. He noted, quote, "We shall have to do the whole thing over again in 25 years' time at three times the cost." However, the most depressing observation came from the French Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch. Ferdinand Foch read the treaty, he read the contents of the treaty, and he said, quote, "This is not peace. This is a 20-year truce." Considering that the next war will begin on the 1st of September 1939, he was off by two months. Prophetic words indeed.
Next series of lectures, you're going to hear will be covering the rise of totalitarianism. Good luck.
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All right, so, um, the situation of course is ripe for, um, our next lecture, the our upcoming lecture on totalitarianism and the fascist states. And of course, you'll find out the men I've mentioned in the beginning of this lecture, you know, with Adolf Hitler and with Mussolini, even Spain has a fascist government, you'll learn about Spain as well when we discuss the, the fall of a lot of these European countries to totalitarianism. And, you know, a lot of people are going to be alarmed by this. Not quite so alarmed, of course, because World War I is still fresh in their memory. And we'll see that there's a lot of appeasement going on. If you make someone happy, especially Adolf Hitler, he'll be satisfied and he'll just stop. Well, the appeasement, obviously, looking back, we have that privilege, um, and we have that hindsight. Appeasement did not work because men like Adolf Hitler were never satisfied, and they just took more and more and more. And so we'll see that, you know, World War I, people did not want to go to war again. You know, Britain does not want to go to war again, France does not want to go to war again. But eventually, we'll see that with the, all of these states in Europe falling to these, uh, totalitarian governments, that, uh, eventually, of course, that along with other reasons, will lead into World War II. Until next time.