A Shattered Peace Analysis

Since the completion of the First World War and the conclusion of the Treaty of Versailles there has been much discussion on whether the Second World War and the following major events of the twentieth century were born from the events of the 1919 Paris peace conference and conclusions of the peace settlement. David Andelman in his ‘A Shattered Peace’1 puts forth the opinion that the actions and decisions of the main players, Clemenceau, Lloyd George and Wilson, and the final conclusions of the peace treaty, did indeed lead to the Second World War and some of the major conflicts of the twenty first century. Margret Macmillan, however, in her journal article ‘Making war, Making peace: Versailles 1919’2 argues that though the conclusions of the …show more content…
Macmillan states that the main powers and the failure of the peace treaty to ensure everlasting peace cannot accept full blame for the events of the twentieth century. The armies of the allies had shrunk through ‘rapidly demobilisation,’17and the allied soldiers and their families had suffered and were ‘reluctant to contemplate renewed hostilities.’18 Through this Macmillan contends that the main powers were lacking the man power to influence events and enforce all decisions.19 Historian Alan Sharp supports this when he says ‘The conference might make decisions but often had no means of enforcing them.’20 Macmillan goes on to argue that the peace settlement did come to a conclusion of peace terms that ‘Germany and its allies...were prepared to accept.’21 Therefore it was the actions post summit that lead to the failure of controlling Germany and to the second world war. As Macmillan states ‘The treaty might have worked to keep Germany firmly anchored within a strong international system if there had been the will to enforce it properly.’22 Macmillan also points out that the introduction of the League of Nations was a positive change. The league was designed to give smaller countries a voice and eventually to develop their own stronger democracies. Macmillan, unlike Andleman, believes It was not a failure of Wilson and the other main powers to add the league to …show more content…
His emotional writing acts to portray a biased argument, devaluing his validity. Macmillan, however, uses an detached writing style, placing forth a more convincing and balanced argument that the outcome of the peace treaty did take part in leading towards future conflicts but cannot hold full blame. She states in her article that the peace makers ‘had limited options’28 but that they managed to create a treaty that was ‘met with general approval in the Allied countries.’29 Therefore the Peace settlement cannot be entirely the cause of future conflicts, in some form ‘The outcome depended on the decisions of later leaders’30as