The Treaty of Versailles: A Reassessment after 75 Years

by Edited by Manfred F. Boemeke , Gerald D. Feldman , Elisabeth Glaser

• ISBN13: 9780521628884
• ISBN10: 0521628881
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-04-27
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book on the Treaty of Versailles constitutes a new synthesis of peace conference scholarship. It illuminates events from the armistice in 1918 to the signing of the treaty in 1919, and scrutinizes the motives, actions, and constraints that informed decision making by the French, American, and English politicians who bore the principal responsibility for drafting the peace settlement. It also addresses German reactions to the draft treaty and the final agreement. A detailed examination of the proceedings from the point of view of the main protagonists forms the core of the investigation.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Prologue: 1919-1945-1989

Peace Planning and the Actualities of the Armistice

Germany's peace aims and the domestic and international constraints

'Had we known how bad things were in Germany, we might have got stiffer terms': Great Britain and the German Armistice

French war aims and peace planning

Wilsonian concepts and international realities at the end of the war

A comment

The Peacemakers and their

Great Britain: the home front

The French peacemakers and their home front

The American mission to negotiate peace: an historian looks back

Between Compiegne and Versailles: the Germans on the way from a misunderstood defeat to an unwanted peace

A comment

The Reconstruction of Europe and the Settlement of Accounts

The Minorities question at the Paris Peace Conference: the Polish Minority Treaty, June 28, 1919

The Rhineland question: West European Security at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919

The Polish question

Smoke and mirrors: in smoke-filled rooms and the

The making of the economic peace

The balance of payments question: Versailles and after

A comment

The Legacy and Consequences of Versailles

The Soviet Union and Versailles

Versailles and international diplomacy

The League of Nations: toward a new appreciation of its history

A comment

Antecedents and Aftermaths: Reflections on the War Guilt Question and the Settlement

Max Weber and the Peace Treaty of Versailles Wolfgang

The construction of the American interpretation: the pro-Treaty version

British revisionism

Woodrow Wilson's image of Germany, the war-guilt question, and the Treaty of Versailles

A comment

Bibliography

Index

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