Why were economists opposed to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles?
1 Answer
They were concerned reparations went too far and were counterproductive.
Explanation:
WW1 was a war improbably started with the assassination of one man (the Archduke Ferdinand), and ended with a series of peace treaties, the most notable of them being the Treaty of Versailles which was the peace treaty with Germany.
Rightly or wrongly, the Entente Alliance placed blame for the war on Germany's shoulders and demanded that Germany pay for the damages done by both itself and its allies and became known as the War Guild Clause.
War is devastating to both the victor and the defeated (except in certain rare cases, such as the United States, where what are generally European and Asian wars tend not to spill over into), and so the costs of rebuilding your own country is an extraordinarily expensive proposition. Add to that burden the need to pay for the victor's costs first and you have an economic catastrophe in the making.
And that is what was foreseen by economists of the time, notably John Maynard Keynes, who said the reparations being demanded were excessive and counterproductive (and on the other hand, there were those, such as French Marshal Ferdinand Foch, who felt the reparations didn't go far enough).
The overall goal of the Treaty was a bit of a mixed bag since there were several nations involved in deciding what they wanted to see happen:
-
On the one hand there was a desire to permanently weaken Germany and make sure it could never go to war again (France was very keen on this - being a country bordering Germany).
-
There was also a desire to have reparations but not in a manner that would negatively impact the ability to have a trading partner in the future (this was Great Britain, which didn't sustain much land damage in the war and so was much more concerned about the British economy).
-
There was a desire to have "bygones be bygones" and instead of punishing Germany, to have everyone shake hands and get on with the creation of a better world through the creation of a League of Nations (the precursor to the United Nations) (this was the US view and didn't get a lot of traction in non-punishment of Germany... but did lead to the League of Nations).
In the end, a radicalized German named Adolph Hitler, riding a sea of discontent from the economic reparations and the devastation from WW1, came to power and essentially singlehandedly started WW2.
