Download Bitter Peace and Broken Promises after WWI

Bitter Peace and Broken Promises after WWI
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General Information
Source:
Dateline NBC
Resource Type:
Creator:
Prof. David Kennedy
Copyright:
Event Date:
Air/Publish Date:
1918 - 1939
06/22/2004
Copyright Date:
Clip Length
Video Documentary
[Long Form
Specials/Datelines, etc.]
NBCUniversal Media,
LLC.
2004
00:02:28
Description
Professor David Kennedy talks about the punitive nature of the Treaty of Versailles, signed after World
War I
Keywords
World War I, Peace Negotiations, Germany, France, Great Britain, Peace Settlement, Treaty of Versailles
, War Reparations, League of Nations, Adolph Hitler, WWII, Isolationism, International Relations, David
Kennedy
Transcript
Bitter Peace and Broken Promises After WWI
© 2008-2016 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Page 1 of 2
PROFESSOR DAVID KENNEDY (Stanford University): World War I had been going on 2 ½ years
before the United States entered it. And it took another year plus for the United States to actually raise and
transport a sizeable army. And the fact is that the Americans fought only at the very tail end of World War
I, really in any substantial numbers, and only in the last 45 days of the war in 1918. But nevertheless, the
American presence and the promise of more troops to come and behind those who had already arrived
was a deciding factor in inducing the Germans to sue for peace in 1918. The critics of the peace settlement
in Paris have said that the problem with the peace settlement was that it continued in peacetime the
division of Europe that had been imposed by the conditions of war. So the 1918 settlement was not a
settlement of reconciliation, it was a punitive piece directed against Germany. A lot of German assets
were confiscated; Germany was saddled with the obligation to pay reparations to Britain and France. Her
trade was restricted; control of her own internal waterways was restricted. This left a very bitter taste
amongst the Germans. It was that basis of resentment that Hitler was--so skillfully mobilized when he
came to power in 1933. In some ways you might say the harshness of the peace in 1918 was the core
foundational reason for the outbreak of World War II a couple of decades later.
One needs to remember this-- the 1920s and 1930s were probably the most isolationist moment in all of
American history. This country substantially withdrew from the world politically, militarily,
diplomatically, morally, in many ways. Uh, we had promised the French in 1918-1919 as a condition of
their signing the Versailles Treaty and agreeing to join the League of Nations and so on, that we would
sign with them a security treaty, which we would guarantee French security against possible German
revival. We never signed that treaty even though we’d promised to do it. This bred a lot of resentment in
France against the United States. At the same time we insisted that the French and the British
governments actually repay to the United States treasury the several billion dollars worth that they owed
in war debts from World War I. This was highly disruptive to international capital flows but also just to
the French treasury. So this…the 1920’s and 30’s was not a time of very amicable relationships between
the United States and France and even more broadly between the United States and most of the European
powers.
© 2008-2016 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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