lt in these areas.4. Reparations. The Germans had imposed reparations on the French after 1871, to make them pay for the war, in 1919 a lot of British and French politicians were determined to make Germany pay for the great war that was just finished. In the end the demands were far beyond any reasonable ability the Germans had to pay. No figure was actually set and the treaty merely stated that the Germans would pay. The section on reparations also specified that Germany could be occupied by foreign troops if it failed to meet its payments.Germany never thought the Versailles Settlement was fair, as it based its judgements on three premises: that Germany had lost; that it fought a dirty war; and that it started the war, Germany never accepted any of these three premises. Other things the Germans had trouble accepting was: Alsace and Lorraine were taken away on the argument that it is wrong to detach territory from another state, at the same time the Saar was being detached from Germany. While Germans in the Sudetenland, Austria and South Tyrol was denied the right to national self-determination, new states were being set up everywhere on this principle. They also had severe restrictions on their armaments, and they were supposed to pay an unreasonable high reparation bill for the war. Also it was a dictated peace, Germany was not invited to the Versailles conference, they were just handed the completed treaty and told to sign within seven days. Looking at all this it is easy to draw the conclusion that the Versailles Treaty, due to its way to hard treatment of the Germans, was responsible for the rise of Hitler and therefore the World War II. But it could also be said that it was a mistake because of the lack of will to enforce it by the victors, and that if they had enforced it with the same strictness it was drawn up it might actually have worked. Another, in the view a lot of people, significant reason for the outbreak o...
