The Treaty of Versailles: A Reassessment after 75 Years

688 Pages·1998·4.67 MB·English

by  Manfred F. Boemeke

The Treaty of Versailles
A REASSESSMENT AFTER 75 YEARS
This book on the Treaty of Versailles constitutes a new synthesis of peace conference schol-
arship. It illuminates events from the armistice in 1918 to the signing of the treaty in 1919,
scrutinizing the motives, actions, and constraints that informed decision making by the
French, American, and British politicians who bore the principal responsibility for drafting
the peace settlement. It also addresses German reactions to the draft treaty and the final
agreement, as well as Germany's role in the immediate postwar period. The findings call
attention to diverging peace aims within the American and Allied camps and underscore the
degree to which the negotiators themselves considered the Versailles Treaty a work in pro-
gress. A detailed examination of the proceedings from the point of view of the main pro-
tagonists forms the core of the investigation.
Manfred F. Boemeke is chief editor at the United Nations University Press in Japan.
Gerald D. Feldman is a professor of history and the director of the Center for German and
European Studies at the University of California at Berkeley.
Elisabeth Glaser is a former senior research fellow of the German Historical Institute in
Washington, D.C. She currently is a German Marshall Fund fellow.

PUBLICATIONS OF THE GERMAN HISTORICAL INSTITUTE
The German Historical Institute is a center for advanced study and research whose purpose
is to provide a permanent basis for scholarly cooperation among historians from the Federal
Republic of Germany and the United States. The Institute conducts, promotes, and sup-
ports research into both American and German political, social, economic, and cultural his-
tory, into transatlantic migration, especially in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and
into the history of international relations, with special emphasis on the roles played by the
United States and Germany.
Other books in the series.
Hartmut Lehmann and James J. Sheehan, editors, An Interrupted Past: German-Speaking Refugee
Historians in the United States after 1933
Carole Fink, Axel Frohn, and Jiirgen Heideking, editors, Genoa, Rapallo, and European Recon-
struction in 1922
David Clay Large, editor, Contending with Hitler: Varieties of German Resistance in the Third Reich
Larry Eugene Jones and James Retallack, editors, Elections, Mass Politics, and Social Change in Mod-
ern Germany
Hartmut Lehmann and Guenther Roth, editors, Weber's Protestant Ethic: Origins, Evidence, Con-
texts
Catherine Epstein, A Past Renewed: A Catalog of German-Speaking Historians in the United States
after 1933
Hartmut Lehmann and James Van Horn Melton, editors, Paths of Continuity: Central European His-
toriography from the 1930s to the 1950s
Jeffry M. Diefendorf, Axel Frohn, and Hermann-Josef Rupieper, editors, American Policy and the
Reconstruction of West Germany, 1945-1955
Henry Geitz, Jiirgen Heideking, andjurgen Herbst, editors, German Influences on Education in the
United States to 1911
Peter Graf Kielmansegg, Horst Mewes, and Elisabeth Glaser-Schmidt, editors, Hannah Arendt and
Leo Strauss: German Emigres and American Political Thought after World War II
Dirk Hoerder andJorg Nagler, editors, People in Transit: German Migrations in Comparative Perspec-
tive, 1820-1930
R. Po-chia Hsia and Hartmut Lehmann, editors, In and Out of the Ghetto: Jewish—Gentile Relations
in Late Medieval and Early Modern Germany
Sibylle Quack, editor, Between Sorrow and Strength: Women Refugees of the Nazi Period
Mitchell G. Ash and Alfons Sollner, editors, Forced Migration and Scientific Change: Emigre German-
Speaking Scientists and Scholars after 1933
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in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Germany
Stig Forster and Jorg Nagler, editors, On the Road to Total War: The American Civil War and the Ger-
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many and America since 1116

The Treaty of Versailles
A REASSESSMENT AFTER 75 YEARS
Edited by
MANFRED F BOEMEKE
GERALD D. FELDMAN
and
ELISABETH GLASER
GERMAN HISTORICAL INSTITUTE
Washington, D. C.
and
CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521621328
© The German Historical Institute, Washington, DC 1998
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 1998
This digitally printed first paperback version 2006
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
The Treaty of Versailles : a reassessment after 75 years / edited by
Manfred F. Boemeke, Gerald D. Feldman and Elisabeth Glaser.
p. cm. — (Publications of the German Historical Institute)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-521-62132-1
1. Treaty of Versailles (1919) - History. 2. World War, 1914-1918
- Peace - History. I. Boemeke, Manfred F. (Manfred Franz)
II. Feldman, Gerald D. III. Glaser, Elisabeth. IV Series.
KZ186.2 1919
940.3'142-dc21 98-15770
CIP
ISBN-13 978-0-521-62132-8 hardback
ISBN-10 0-521-62132-1 hardback
ISBN-13 978-0-521-62888-4 paperback
ISBN-10 0-521-62888-1 paperback
Contents
Acknowledgments page ix
List of Contributors xi
Introduction Manfred F. Boemeke, Gerald D. Feldman, and Elisabeth Glaser 1
Prologue: 1919-1945-1989 Ronald Steel 21
PART ONE
PEACE PLANNING AND THE ACTUALITIES OF THE ARMISTICE
1 Germany's Peace Aims and the Domestic and International
Constraints Klaus Schwabe 37
2 "Had We Known How Bad Things Were in Germany, We
Might Have Got Stiffer Terms": Great Britain and the
German Armistice David French 69
3 French War Aims and Peace Planning David Stevenson 87
4 Wilsonian Concepts and International Realities at the End
of the War Thomas J. Knock 111
5 A Comment by Alan Sharp 131
PART TWO
THE PEACEMAKERS AND THEIR HOME FRONTS
6 Great Britain: The Home Front Erik Goldstein 147
7 The French Peacemakers and Their Home Front
Georges-Henri Soutou 167
8 The American Mission to Negotiate Peace: An Historian
Looks Back Lawrence E. Gelfand 189
9 Between Compiegne and Versailles: The Germans on the Way
from a Misunderstood Defeat to an Unwanted Peace Fritz Klein 203
10 A Comment Antony Lentin 221
vii
viii Contents
PART THREE
THE RECONSTRUCTION OF EUROPE AND THE SETTLEMENT OF ACCOUNTS
11 The Minorities Question at the Paris Peace Conference: The Polish
Minority Treaty, June 28, 1919 Carole Fink 249
12 The Rhineland Question: West European Security at the Paris Peace
Conference of 1919 Stephen A. Schuker 275
13 The Polish Question Piotr S. Wandycz 313
14 Smoke and Mirrors: In Smoke-Filled Rooms and the
Galerie des Glaces Sally Marks 337
15 The Making of the Economic Peace Elisabeth Glaser 371
16 The Balance of Payments Question: Versailles and After
Niall Ferguson 401
17 A Comment Gerald D. Feldman 441
PART FOUR
THE LEGACY AND CONSEQUENCES OF VERSAILLES
18 The Soviet Union and Versailles Jon Jacobson 451
469
19 Versailles and International Diplomacy William R. Keylor
20 The League of Nations: Toward a New Appreciation of
Its History Antoine Fleury 507
21 A Comment Diane B. Kunz 523
PART FIVE
ANTECEDENTS AND AFTERMATHS:
REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR-GUILT QUESTION AND THE SETTLEMENT
22 Max Weber and the Peace Treaty of Versailles Wolfgang J. Mommsen 535
23 The Construction of the American Interpretation: The
Pro-Treaty Version William C. Widenor 547
24 British Revisionism Michael Graham Fry 565
25 Woodrow Wilson's Image of Germany, the War-Guilt Question,
and the Treaty of Versailles Manfred F. Boemeke 603
26 A Comment Gordon Martel 615
Bibliography 637
Index 659