Versailles Treaty – Page 2 – Old Magazine Articles

Allied Occupation of Germany Ends
(The Pathfinder, 1930)

The foreign correspondent for Pathfinder Magazine filed this brief report about the goings-on in Germany on June 30, 1930, when the last Allied regiments had completed their occupation duties mandated under the Treaty of Versailles and withdrew to their own borders:

For the most part the German population waited patiently until the last uniformed Frenchman had entrained and then they raised the German flags, [and] began to sing ‘Deutschland Ueber Alles’…

President Hindenburg issued a proclamation saying in part:

‘After long years of hardships and waiting, the demand of all Germans was today fulfilled. Loyalty to her fatherland, patient perseverance and common sacrifices have restored to the occupied territory the highest possession of every people – freedom.’

The Versailles Treaty and the German Colonies
(Leslie’s Weekly, 1919)

Half way through the year of 1919, editorials like this one began to appear in many places which served to inform the English-speaking world that the Germans were peacefully handing over their African colonies (as they were obliged to do in article 119 of the Versailles Treaty):

Germany renounces in favor of the principal Allied and Associated Powers all her rights and titles over her overseas possessions.

John Maynard Keynes on the Versailles Treaty
(Current Opinion, 1922)

A magazine review of John Maynard Keynes book, A Revision of the Treaty (1922). The reviewer wrote that it lacks the prophetic fire of it’s author’s earlier book, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, but continues the argument of that book:

Mr. Keynes claims that almost everyone now has come around to his point of view. We practically all recognize, he says, the over-severity of the reparation clauses written into the Versailles Treaty.

Britain and France Draw Closer
(Literary Digest, 1921)

When Capitol Hill rejected the Versailles Treaty in 1919, Paris and London found themselves having to rely upon each other in ways they weren’t expecting.

The Ongoing French Occupation of Germany
(Literary Digest, 1928)

The attached article, written in 1928, reported on how heartily sick the Germans were at having to serve as hosts for three occupying armies as a result of a Versailles Treaty clause that mandated the Allied military occupation until 1935. The Foreign Minister of Germany, Dr Gustav Stresemann, made several eloquent pleas to the diplomatic community insisting that there was no need for the continuing encampments before he began submitting his bitter editorials to assorted European magazines, which are discussed herein:

Friendship between France and Germany is impossible as long as Allied troops remain in the occupation area of the Rhineland…

Calling Out the Kaiser, et al…
(”Our Times”, 1936)

[On January 16, 1920] the Peace Conference at Paris summoned Holland to yield the ex-Kaiser of Germany for trial… In its reply, issued January 23, Holland refused.

The conferees also demanded that Germany hand over some 850 German citizens to stand trial for numerous infractions; needless to say, nothing came of the request.

A List of German Versailles Treaty Violations
(Literary Digest, 1936)

This is an interesting article that announced the Germans march into the Rhineland as well as the island of Hegoland. The journalist also listed various other Versailles Treaty infractions.

Click here to read an additional article concerning the Versailles Treaty violations.

One German’s Opinion
(The Nation, 1922)

A few choice words concerning the Treaty of Versailles by the German anti-socialist author S. Miles Bouton (born 1876):

Such a treaty could not bring real peace to the world even if the conditions were less critical and complex. As they are, it will hasten and aggravate what the world will soon discover to be the most serious, vital, and revolutionary consequences of the war.

The quote above is an excerpt from THE NATION’s review of Bouton’s 1922 book, And The Kaiser Abdicates: The German Revolution, November, 1918.

The U.S. Occupation of Turkey
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1920)

There aren’t many Yanks in Turkey but an American naval force of eight destroyers is being kept in Turkish waters to protect American interests and to assist the British, French and Italian navies before Constantinople to induce compliance by Turkey with the terms of the peace treaty and to serve as a warning to cease her practices against the Armenians in Asia Minor.

The German Rebellion Against the Treaty
(Literary Digest, 1923)

This 1923 German editorial by Professor Rudolf Euken (coincidentally published in THE EUKEN REVIEW) was accompanied by an anti-Versailles Treaty cartoon which attempted to rally the German working classes to join together in rebellion against the treaty.

The so-called Peace of Versailles subjects the German people to unheard-of treatment; has injured and crippled Germany; has, with refined cruelty, deprived her of fertile territories; robbed her of sources indispensable to her existence; has heaped upon her huge burdens, and this for an indenite time – the intention being, if possible, to reduce her people to serfdom.

Click here to read another one of Rudolf Euken’s post-war efforts.

Click here if you would like to read about the 1936 Versailles Treaty violations.